I know that APs are set for a 15 point pbs. But I feel thatit's too low as point buy. So, I need some advice for the next kingmaker campaign I'm about to run. I was thinking some option to generate ability scores, so there are my thoughts:
1) 20 points pbs. Straight enough, but could make players... upset.
2) 25 pbs. Should be high enough, but I'm afraid of an overpowered group, as it's 10 points over the ap standard.
3) 1d10+8 for 3 stats, 1d8+8 for other 3. A bit over average, possibly to much spread between scores.
4) 15 or 20 pbs +1dX (need advice on the Xbox value ) which give a bunch of free points to distribute among stats.
Suggestion, advices? Some of my players like the randomness of rolling dice, but I want to keep down the spread, so I'm up unlikely let roll. Any suggestion is welcome as well as methods that keep some "balance" with the ap level of power.
I am using 22 BP and things are going pretty well. It stops people from playing MAD characters like Monks and Paladins though, cause they don't have the points to be good at multiple stats.
I went with 20 point buy. My five players breezed through some earlier encounters until I introduced the six-player conversions and some customized enemies and encounters.
Why would 20 point (vs. 25) upset your players? It yields enough stat point that each character should be good at one or two things.
maybe because some of them are used to rolled stats, and in other campaigns back in 3.5 times, I let them roll 4d6, reroll 1s, drop lowest. Adding to that, abcold has some point. A player of mine is leaning toward a maneuver master monk, so I'm worried about the performance of mad characters with a 20 point. And if this isn't enough, somebody like the randomness more than the pbs.
Ultimately, what I like to know is: what happen to the balance of kingmaker if I allow a 20 pbs, a 25, or a rolling method that could generate above average characters? If that goes unbalanced, how I can rebalance that?
I'm in between the worry of having overpowered stats and the worry of giving a pbs that could not give the players the option to play what they want.
As many have said in other threads, kingmaker is very much a one encounter a day as written. This makes for a rather unchallenging AP for many groups even with only a 15 point buy. However, as a gm running kingmaker, I can share that I have found that the real strength of this campaign is your ability to mold it and add additional encounters and challenges.
Some suggestions you may want to consider:
1) Use the 6 player conversions on these boards. They are fantastic and a great challenge, especially if your players have a long history playing these sorts of games.
2) Make sure your players have multiple encounters each day during the exploration portions of the ap.
3) if scaling up encounters to be more challenging, increase the number of additional allies the enemies have. It is much more difficult to handle an ogre and his 4 warg allies than it is to handle an ogre that has been advanced.
4) let your enemies be intelligent, form plans, and play dirty. Kingmaker gives you something amazing - time. You could have years between events if you want to, these enemies of your players certainly won't be sitting back waiting for the heroes to dethrone them.
5) have a blast! Kingmaker is a wonderful sandbox that really comes alive when you put time into making it your own. Spend some extra time as a dm to enrich the story and your players will be talking about it for decades to come!
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I'm running a 4 player group at the moment using this formula below.
(The version I used allows players to make customized characters by spending points to buy racial traits, the lite version below is meant to make games balanced.)
-----The Formula-----
- 35 character points (CP) to make a character.
- Basing on the ARG, the RP cost of a race is deducted from this pool of 35 points
- Remaining points is used to purchase ability scores. (To a max cap of 25 points)
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Some examples:
1) 35CP - Human (9RP) = 25 ability scores pointbuy
2) 35CP - Half-Elf (10RP) = 25 ability scores pointbuy
3) 35CP - Dwarf (11RP) = 24 ability scores pointbuy
4) 35CP - Aasimar (15 rp) = 20 ability scores pointbuy
5) 35CP - Fetchling (15 rp) = 18 ability scores pointbuy
Basically the ideal is, the more powerful a race a player plays, the less points he/she will have to buy ability scores.
This is to encourage players to try out other races, instead of them all playing a "stronger" race like Tiefling/Fetchling or Aasimars.
The 25 max for ability score purchase is to prevent players from abusing races with low RP like the elemental races, which only have 6rp.
Finally, the "base-line" ability point buy can be decided by reducing or increasing the CP allowed. 30 CP will mean 21 ability scores pointbuy for humans, 15 ability scores pointbuy for Aasimars, etc.
I started my game with two players and a GMPC heal bot. Based on the low number of players I let them use 25 pt. Eventually I picked up a third player who I also let use 25 pt buy. The GMPC died and we then picked up a fourth player who, again, used 25 pt buy. Needless to say, I regret it.
I have had to do a LOT of work to keep things challenging for my group. If you have the time to do it then great! But I play APs because I don't have the time to run a hombrew.
If you want a challenging campaign that you don't have to constantly add elements to just to make it fun, then use 15 or 20 point buy.
Hmmm. What dice rolling method is the closest to a 20 point pbs? I'm still deciding what to use. I'm leaning toward discarding the grid method and maybe the 4d6, for now.
15 to 20 point buy for sure!
20 is more than good enough for MAD characters!
4d6, reroll 1s, drop lowest is what my group uses.
Though I'm thinking of scrapping stat generation entirely for my game after Kingmaker and either going with a set array or "just pick your stats based on what you think your character should have" (with GM license to deny any arrays that are ridiculous - all 18s or whatnot).
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Hmmm. What dice rolling method is the closest to a 20 point pbs? I'm still deciding what to use. I'm leaning toward discarding the grid method and maybe the 4d6, for now.
Nobody showed up for my office hours this morning, so I took a shot at answering this question. Since you could potentially roll numbers less than 7 with dice, I attributed those numbers a point buy value:
6 = -6 points
5 = -9 points
4 = -12 points
3 = -16 points
Rolling 3 dice, your most likely results 10s and 11s. Your expected value is a point buy of 3 points.
Rolling 3 dice, and re-rolling 1s, your most likely results are 11s, 12s and 13s. Your expected value is a point buy of just over 14 points.
Rolling 4 dice, dropping the lowest, your most likely results are 12s, 13s and 14s. Your expected value is a point buy of just under 19 points.
Rolling 4 dice, re-rolling 1s, and dropping the lowest, your most likely results are 13s and 14s. Your expected value is a point buy of about 28 points.
So, in answer to your question, roll 4 and drop the lowest is the closest to a 20 point buy. Probably the biggest difference is that with point buy, most people are going to give themselves at least a 16 in their most important stat. With dice rolling, there's a significant (just over 40%) chance that you get a stat array with no 16s or better.
I have a spreadsheet with a bunch of calculations in it, but I figured people's eyes would glaze over if I posted too much math to the message board.
So, in answer to your question, roll 4 and drop the lowest is the closest to a 20 point buy. Probably the biggest difference is that with point buy, most people are going to give themselves at least a 16 in their most important stat. With dice rolling, there's a significant (just over 40%) chance that you get a stat array with no 16s or better.
I have a spreadsheet with a bunch of calculations in it, but I figured people's eyes would glaze over if I posted too much math to the message board.
Wow, thank you. It's really interesting. Though I have just some bit of notions on statistic, I'd like to see the spreadsheet. If I can ask, what about distribution like 2d6+6, 3d6+6 drop lowest, and 3d6+6 reroll 1s and drop lowest? Can you give me a hint?
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So, it is probably not surprising that giving your characters a +6, in place of a dice roll, is pretty good.
Rolling 2d6 + 6 is, in expected value, equivalent to a 25 - 26 point buy.
Rolling 3d6 + 6, and dropping the lowest, is equivalent to a 42 point buy.
Rolling 3d6 + 6, re-rolling 1s, and dropping the lowest, is equivalent to a 50 point buy. 16 becomes the most likely result by this method!
Blackstorm, I will email you the spreadsheet (and I will do the same for anyone else who really wants to go through it with a fine toothed comb).
P.S. Hugozilla, if you read this, I am just talking math and not reading all the spoilers about what's coming up next!
The Standard isnt 15pt, its 20. Important NPCs on the AP are 20pts, just like PCs.
Make 20pts. The AP ISNT NEARLY as easy as people are saying.
There are plenty of ambushes and very hard fights... if you play by the rules, the Whiptail centipede should wipe half the party BEFORE they have a chance to react and whipe the other half afterward, since they are already destroyed :P
Nyrissa is powerfull as hell on the last fight of the AP as are many key encouters:
Whiptail centipede and Tickleback on mite lair just right of the bat
The Staglord can destroy the party just based of how aware of the players the bandits are.
On second part both the lizardmen and the trolls are very strong for the levels the party are supposed to meet with them... not to tell about the Willowisp on lake Candemere... and so on...
Nah, those "named bosses" are strong, but not "OP" at all. They put the scare in the party, but for 20 point buy it should be more than enough to take 'em down.
The Standard isnt 15pt, its 20. Important NPCs on the AP are 20pts, just like PCs.
Incorrect. For PFS 20 PB is the standard, but for APs it's 15, according to the devs.
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And if you look at the pregens that come with the AP, they're all 15 PB.
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As I recollect, there really are not that many TPK type encounters in KM, certainly not as many as there were early on in APs like RotRL. Anything that is going to give them serious problems is'nt going to be fixed by a few more starting score points, its going to be things that are way beyond their level, usually wandering monsters at lower level.
They really dont need a high point buy after that either because KM tends to be a 1 fight/day type of environment, with very few dungeon crawls. Even with my best effort to give my group back-to-back encounters, it was'nt until they ended up in a protracted siege of a town by an opposing army that they started to run out of daily resources for the first time...at 8th lvl.
20 pt buy is plenty. I would not recommend going above that personally. I won't hurt anything to do so, but don't be surprised if you have to start modding encounters at around 5-7th level if you do.
I'm planning anyway to add encounters to the baseline. And I have 5 players, so I'm going to use the 6 players conversion.
Honestly I've found 25 point buy to be the best. It's to the point where buying up to 17 or 18 is still less than ideal, even for more SAD classes, but MAD classes get a good spread of points to use, to cover all their bases.
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25 is too much, trust me.
If your grop is roleplay heavy, sure, but if they understand half how to build a dps monster, prepare for really quick encounters! :p
Go with 15 point buy, the AP is a cakewalk after you push through the first couple of levels (which do have some random encounters that are potentional TPKs).
I'm running KM for a group of 5 with a 15 PB and fairly unoptimized characters. I'm mostly using the 6 player conversion and they're doing quite well.
I don't play my baddies overly vicious, and sometimes I run an encounter by the book instead of the conversion if my players seem a little haggard; the encounters are anything but a cakewalk, but they're having fun.
There have been a few player deaths due to bad tactics, but other than that the AP isn't all that difficult.
If you do want to give your players a higher point buy, I really recommend the 6 player conversion found on these boards. It's fairly well balanced, does a good job of improving action economy with more bad guys, and rebuilds several key NPCs using APG classes and archetypes that really fit the encounters better.
A party of four with a 25 PB should be able to handle the conversion quite nicely.
I'll anyway add encounters. So they should be able to handle from 2 to 5 encounters per day.