RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't get the attitude that rolling a 7 is somehow "pure" but dumping in PB to get a 7 is "bad." If the character is mechanically and RP identical, who cares how the low stat got there?
Accepting the risk of rolling low stats in the hope of rolling high ones doesn't seem any more noble to me than accepting a low stat in order to buy a high one.
Also remember "average person" is 3 PB so even 10 PB is a big step up from the standard inhabitant of the game world.
Just wanted to point out to those who suggest giving better arms and armor to make up for lower stats on 10 point martials... that misses out on a little more than just AC and damage. :ower point buy for a class with MAD mean they suffer behind in every check; their AC, HP, accuracy, damage, saves skill points per level and over all skill checks will all lag behind something like that 10 point wizard who really just gave up an extra +1 from DEX and CON with the reduced point buy.
So yes, you're correct that you will be behind everywhere, but that's to be expected with lower point buy. I mean, that's sort of the point, right?
The point about wealth is that your relative deficiencies within the 10 point buy environment narrow as you get gear. The difference between a 10 point buy fighter with a +6 belt, +5 weapon, gloves of dueling, etc. and a 20 point buy fighter with a +6 belt, +5 weapon, gloves of dueling, etc. will be fairly minimal - both should be able to perform against on-level challenges. The differences presented by point buys are most apparent when you have lesser wealth and feat compensation.
I don't get the attitude that rolling a 7 is somehow "pure" but dumping in PB to get a 7 is "bad." If the character is mechanically and RP identical, who cares how the low stat got there?
Accepting the risk of rolling low stats in the hope of rolling high ones doesn't seem any more noble to me than accepting a low stat in order to buy a high one.
Also remember "average person" is 3 PB so even 10 PB is a big step up from the standard inhabitant of the game world.
Exactly.
Spend your points how you want. Dump stats if you want, put all your points into one stat who cares. Play the character that you enjoy the most. Have fun!
I've dumped stats before, but generally don't. I've put max points into a stat before but generally don't. It really depends on what I'm trying to do thematically and mechanically.
You might want to look up the word "luck".I wouldn't play a campaign with 3d6 strict stat generation (which, on average, would generate stats better than 10 pb)That's b##+$#+#. 3d6 is a symmetric distribution, so on average, you get as many 10's (0 pts) as 11's (1 pt), as many 9's (-1 pt) as 12's (2 pts), as many 8's (2 pts) as 13's (3 pts), as many 7's (-4 pts) as 14's (5 pts), and so on (to deal with stats below 7, I continue the logic of the point-buy system: each decrease is worth as much as the penalty the new value carries, so -6 for a 6, -9 for a 5, -12 for a 4 and -16 for a 3). You'll notice that adding the values for complementary stats (adding to 21) is always 1 point. So, on average, 3d6 is equivalent to 3 point buy, which is significantly lower than 10 PB.
No, he's right. Or, more sarcastically, you might want to look up the phrase "on average."
I know what it means, but in the context of this discussion, "on average" kinda is a synonym of "in theory".
There's a lot of competition for "most bizarrely incorrect statement on the Paizo forums," but I think we may have a new medal competitor.
|
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
|
I think also in these discussions it's a matter of what you're used to and individual perspective. From my POV, Lady-J's system she described produces ridiculously overpowered characters. I'm happy it works for her and her group, but if I want to play ubermenchen of such proportions I'll whip out Dark Sun. (Math note, rerolling 1s and 2s on a d6 is exactly equivalent to rolling d4+2, so you could use 4d4 drop lowest, +6, and get the same stat spread.)
From my POV, 15 is a perfectly fine casting stat on a full caster. A martial with 14 Str, 12 Dex, 12 Con? Good to go. You don't really need high stats to be successful at this game. They help, sure. But they are nice, not necessary.
From my POV, high point buys also make SAD/MAD disparity worse, not better. It's cheaper to buy moderate stats in several areas. With high PB, a SAD caster can max out their casting stat and still have a good Dex and Con, while dumping basically nothing; conversely, with less points, they have to actually make some tradeoffs. Whereas buying a few 12-14s is easy no matter the PB, and that's all a MAD character needs to work.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One thing I love about low point buy is when you're dungeon crawling and you're all competing to not die.
In a group of four it feels good to be the only person to make it to level 3-4 with your original character.
D&D was originally a survival horror. These days people want to play boring supposed-to-win 50 point buy games. How are you supposed to giggle at a friend who just died to a gelatinous cube?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Imagine you're the experienced player with a bunch of newbies. Would you rather be told: "You're more experienced so I'm choosing your Race & Class for you" or "You're more experienced so you have less points & you can't play a full caster, but otherwise go nuts". Both of these serve to balance the party, but the lower point buy lets the player be more creative (It also lets the experienced player show off a bit, which they'll like & will help the newer players see what can be achieved).
I can't imagine that. The moment a GM tries to tell me that I in particular will be more limited than other players i simply don't play.
I'd laugh at a GM that told me that.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One thing I love about low point buy is when you're dungeon crawling and you're all competing to not die.
In a group of four it feels good to be the only person to make it to level 3-4 with your original character.
D&D was originally a survival horror. These days people want to play boring supposed-to-win 50 point buy games. How are you supposed to giggle at a friend who just died to a gelatinous cube?
"Play" a game? What an interesting concept. I've only seen people talk about how powerful they've made their 10-point buy characters, then argue about rules until it's time to go home.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
D&D was originally a survival horror.Not really. It was a wargame.
Yeah, I'm not even sure "survival horror" was even a thing in 1974, or really any date prior to 1996 or so. I'm not sure "horror" was really a thing in the TTRPG space prior to Call of Cthulhu in 1981.
As for "D&D is supposed to have low-powered characters" let's not forget that the 1st edition DMG (1979) suggests character generation methods like "roll 3d6 12 times and pick 6" or "for each stat roll 3d6 six times and pick the best" or "roll 3d6 in order enough for 12 characters and pick the one you like best." I'm honestly not sure why those methods fell by the wayside, come to think of it; rolling dice is fun.
I have never treated AD&D, D&D, and Pathfinder as wargames.
But the rules for the original version of D&D were based on Chainmail, which was a medieval miniatures wargame whose rules Gary Gygax adapted from rules developed by Jeff Perren for the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association. D&D has wargaming baked deep into its DNA, doesn't mean you need to play it like that, but that's the history of the game.
I mean, for goodness sakes the publisher of D&D was "Tactical Studies Rules Incorporated."
Minmaxers were the reason dice fell by the wayside and left the field to PB... it's harder to optimize a random array.
Minmaxers were the reason dice fell by the wayside and left the field to PB... it's harder to optimize a random array.
That's probably it, I just did the "roll 3d6 6 times for each stat" and got 15,15,15,14,12,15 which is an amazing paladin or bloodrager, but the SAD classes are going to hate it.
standardization is the death of rolling. Dice fell to the wayside because of things like PFS.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
As I've already brought up on page 2, I've never met a person who wants to play a rolled character with an equivalent 19 point buy alongside a rolled character with an equivalent 50 point buy. They're basically not playing the same game at that point. One character is the ubermensch, the other is a squire.
There's this weird undercurrent in the non-PFS side of play that basically says that "PFS IS BADWRONGFUN COOKIE CUTTER." I have seen more character (personality) variety in PFS than I've ever seen in home games, with more mechanical variety in many cases, as well. I know a guy who plays archetyped bards exclusively and each of them is pretty distinct. We've practically renamed the class after him locally. The only Drizzt clones I see are written into rare scenarios. Some new players tend towards stereotype characters, but typically branch out once they get their feet wet.
Saying that PFS, and the "standardization" (expanded, worldwide house rules) "kill rolling" is blanket elitism and it's pretty baseless, as well.
@Serisan I think your post was in response to mine, and you took it in a way I didn't mean, Or you went off on your own tangent. I currently play exclusively PFS, and I love it, so I have nothing against PFS.
But my statement is pretty true exactly because of the reason you start off with. Standardizing stats to be equally available and not have a chance for a 19 to be with a 50 is standardizing. Having a worldwide campaign for everyone will needs standardization for consistency and ease, thus it will not roll for for stats. As such things grow the portion of people being standardized grows. As people encounter it they share, and as they share home games will adopt, because standardization is enticing and easy way to fix/limit the problems of variance between players. Also, when things are large, they make a nice base assumption. I bet many people use 20 pt buy because PFS uses it. If PFS had 25 or 15 I'd imagine that those values would be more common for a generic home game.
As I've already brought up on page 2, I've never met a person who wants to play a rolled character with an equivalent 19 point buy alongside a rolled character with an equivalent 50 point buy. They're basically not playing the same game at that point. One character is the ubermensch, the other is a squire.
How is that really different between playing a rogue or a gunslinger in a party with a wizard and a druid? The game is already unbalanced in all sorts of ways. The friction that would result in "your character is more powerful than mine" just goes away with good groups who are more interested in their characters as people than in their DPR. Most groups I've been in, having one character vastly less powerful than the others gets the group to rally around that person more than anything; people who are vastly more powerful than everybody else will intentionally hamstring themselves by RPing personality quirks, etc.
The appeal of "having the best stats" to me is more "you get to RP the most flawed and irrational person" than "you get the highest bonuses." Having a really weak character just means you have to be tactically sound and you can't just do stupid stuff because "it's in character" because that's how you end up having to make a new character.
D&D was originally a survival horror.Not really. It was a wargame.
I know you may think that, but just because it inherited the mechanics of a war game does not a war game make.
Donkey Kong involves lots of jumping onto platforms, other games followed the idea and mechanics- does that make all games Donkey Kong? Or platformers? Or anything other than their inspired material?
The idea of D&D was to throw your characters into dangerous dungeons full of monsters and traps. All players were vulnerable, resources were limited and you were facing all sorts of vermin, monsters and demons in an environment were you couldn't see 60f ahead of you with the constant threat of the floor giving way or getting crushed from above. Death was frequent and characters were randomly generated and just as randomly degenerated into a pile of gibblets.
People are so personality invested in their characters though and the infuriating amount of time it takes to generate one makes players risk adverse, sycophantly attached and unwilling to accept that, yes,a grue just might eat you.
@Serisan I think your post was in response to mine, and you took it in a way I didn't mean, Or you went off on your own tangent. I currently play exclusively PFS, and I love it, so I have nothing against PFS.
But my statement is pretty true exactly because of the reason you start off with. Standardizing stats to be equally available and not have a chance for a 19 to be with a 50 is standardizing. Having a worldwide campaign for everyone will needs standardization for consistency and ease, thus it will not roll for for stats. As such things grow the portion of people being standardized grows. As people encounter it they share, and as they share home games will adopt, because standardization is enticing and easy way to fix/limit the problems of variance between players. Also, when things are large, they make a nice base assumption. I bet many people use 20 pt buy because PFS uses it. If PFS had 25 or 15 I'd imagine that those values would be more common for a generic home game.
Indeed, I misread the terms "death" and "by the wayside" as pejorative. My apologies for the false accusation.
|
People are so personality invested in their characters though and the infuriating amount of time it takes to generate one makes players risk adverse, sycophantly attached and unwilling to accept that, yes,a grue just might eat you.
I have no idea what your groups are like, but this is untrue in my experience.
People are so personality invested in their characters though and the infuriating amount of time it takes to generate one makes players risk adverse, sycophantly attached and unwilling to accept that, yes,a grue just might eat you.I have no idea what your groups are like, but this is untrue in my experience.
The phenomenon of "I spent so much time figuring out who this character is and what they think, so I don't want to lose them" is one that causes risk aversion which I feel is a problem that is exacerbated by low PB games and is largely ameliorated by giving people better stats.
Like we're talking "Drive a herd of cattle down the dungeon hallway in order to check for traps" level of risk aversion at times.
Nope.
Cattle too expensive, will cut into our WBL figures, just use handle animal to herd some stray cats.
One thing I love about low point buy is when you're dungeon crawling and you're all competing to not die. (...) These days people want to play boring supposed-to-win 50 point buy games.
I can challenge a 50-point buy and I can have a 10-point-buy steamroll through every encounter. Your argument is invalid.
synthesists would be gods
No. Even with 10-point-buy, a Synthethist is still weaker than a regular Summoner. The ability to cheat on the point buy can not compete with a free quicken on every single spell (plus the ability to use the summon monster SLA without being one hit away from death).
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Your argument is invalid.
If you wish to rebut an argument go ahead, but this thread (and in fact the entire forum) is here to encourage discussion, not discourage it.
If you want to change someones mind, you have to present your case, not just tell them their opinion doesn't matter.
Honestly, a 10 point buy has me... confused. I mean, I'm really curious as to how it would play out, and I would even jump into such a game if the GM set up a dedicated Session Zero, but I struggle to find a benefit other than curiosity's sake. Headmath places most of the concepts on my to-do list at an crippling power level.
If anything, I would be inspired to focus quite heavily on mechanics, treating my character building as "damage control". Choosing race based soley on class synergy. Dumping Charisma and/or Intelligence into the dirt. Planning out my Big Six purchases in order of gold value and keeping that spreatsheet with my character sheet. Reactionary and Indominable Faith only. Final Destination.
To be honest I've never played a 10 point game, but I wouldn't turn one down. I agree that a 10 point buy would inspire more focus on mechanics, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
If you're trying to teach people to use the mechanics in a more synergistic way, a lower point buy might help this. If they don't learn to optimise a bit better they're more likely to die.
I've also seen new groups turn into murder-hobos because they think they're untouchable. Even though the power level isn't THAT different, a 10 point buy might FEEL different enough that the players don't get corrupted by their sense of power so quickly.
Another thing people have said is that a 10 point buy encourages more full casters. If that's something you want in your game, then a 10 point buy may be perfect for your game. I've always thought a fun game idea was to make everyone arcane casters in a world where arcane magic is outlawed & controlled by arcane-hunter clerics/inquisitors. A 10 point buy doesn't sound terrible there.
And lastly, the challenge. My favourite computer game of all time is Dark Souls. There are millions of other people who love those games, and you can bet they enjoy a challenge. I'm not going to tell you Dark souls is the hardest game ever (it's not) but it IS challenging. You start the game as a rather week character, and although leveling up your character makes you more powerful, the real increase in power comes from system mastery. You could get that same sense of achievement in Pathfinder - It's fun to curb-stomp a Demon with your 20-point Paladin, but beating the same Demon with a 10-point Rogue is going to feel like way more of an achievement.
MrCharisma, what is your opinion of combat pet classes in a 10 PB game? An Eidolon starts with the equivalent of a 13 PB, and it only grows with levels. Considering its free armor and Evolutions, I don't see why this wouldn't be a preferable front liner over some poor 10 point Ranger or Paladin or whatever.
I've never really played pet classes, so I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask. Having said that, I think you're right - pet classes would be more powerful in a lower point buy. Again, that's something that might be desirable.
The main thing I'm seeing here is to understand what a lower point buy actually does. Maybe the problem here is that people are using 10 point buys for the wrong reasons. Part of that probably comes from the text in the Core Rule Book calling a 10 point buy "Low Fantasy".
Let's talk about what a 10 point buy does:
Encourages more SAD classes (Casters?)
Encourages more mechanics focused characters
Encourages more pet-classes
Encourages stat-dumping
Encourages teamwork (?)
Lowers the average power of the party
There are other ways to achieve all of these things.
If this is what you want from your game, a 10 point buy could be useful. If not, try looking for other options.
Not to mention, "I need him to do exactly this or we will all die." Increased desperation and reduced resources gives rise to tactics often seen as unwanted, like "tanking", "healbots", etc.
D&D was originally a survival horror.Not really. It was a wargame.Yeah, I'm not even sure "survival horror" was even a thing in 1974, or really any date prior to 1996 or so. I'm not sure "horror" was really a thing in the TTRPG space prior to Call of Cthulhu in 1981.
As for "D&D is supposed to have low-powered characters" let's not forget that the 1st edition DMG (1979) suggests character generation methods like "roll 3d6 12 times and pick 6" or "for each stat roll 3d6 six times and pick the best" or "roll 3d6 in order enough for 12 characters and pick the one you like best." I'm honestly not sure why those methods fell by the wayside, come to think of it; rolling dice is fun.
...
But the rules for the original version of D&D were based on Chainmail, which was a medieval miniatures wargame whose rules Gary Gygax adapted from rules developed by Jeff Perren for the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association. D&D has wargaming baked deep into its DNA, doesn't mean you need to play it like that, but that's the history of the game.
I mean, for goodness sakes the publisher of D&D was "Tactical Studies Rules Incorporated."
When I say 'Survival Horror' I'm not saying D&D is Resident Evil. I'm using a 'game feel' term which also happens to be a genre. Rogue-likes are also Survival Horror as well as weird arthouse Russian Morrowind inspired first person adventure titles (what the devil are you tal-).
I don't understand why people literally think D&D is a war game, do you know what war games were for? They were board game reenactments of past and future battles for military/history nerds benefits. Not 'I wonder if my Tolkien fan fic would be more interesting if you had to roll dice to decide everything.' See also: the tactical studies of fireballs and lighting bolts.
See my previous post regarding 'If you get inspiration from something, does that make you a no-talent unoriginal copy cat hack?' feat. Donkey Kong.
One thing I love about low point buy is when you're dungeon crawling and you're all competing to not die. (...) These days people want to play boring supposed-to-win 50 point buy games.I can challenge a 50-point buy and I can have a 10-point-buy steamroll through every encounter. Your argument is invalid.
Your ability/inablity to make appropriate encounters is noted.
Let's talk about what a 10 point buy does:
Encourages teamwork (?)imho, it forces unhealthy types of teamwork, not encouraging any healthy types.
"I can count on my buddies when I need it." isn't the same thing as "I need these guys to be able to do anything."
I would hate to think I would need the other people who sat down at the table with me to play a game together- this isn't what I signed up for!
D&D was originally a survival horror.
Not generally no. My First character, Father Kirkman made it to Lvl 9 before he died and he died on purpose trying to become a saint. (But became a martyr instead)
D&D was originally a survival horror.Not really. It was a wargame.
No, Chainmail was a Wargame*, and yes D&D has it's roots in Chainmail but D&D was not a wargame.
* and a rather bad one.
Imagine you're the experienced player with a bunch of newbies. Would you rather be told: "You're more experienced so I'm choosing your Race & Class for you" or "You're more experienced so you have less points & you can't play a full caster, but otherwise go nuts". Both of these serve to balance the party, but the lower point buy lets the player be more creative (It also lets the experienced player show off a bit, which they'll like & will help the newer players see what can be achieved).I can't imagine that. The moment a GM tries to tell me that I in particular will be more limited than other players i simply don't play.
I'd laugh at a GM that told me that.
My GM had a interesting twist on that. The 2 experienced players got to play Gestalt, while the two newbies got super point buy and max HP.
It worked.
Honestly, I'd rather play Gestalt than super-high point buy. XD I appreciate that variant's ability to help me make more complex characters - in both the mechanical and roleplaying senses.
Well, I probably wouldn't want to gestalt at a low point buy - I feel like that would push someone towards the kind of min-maxed specializing I try to avoid. XD I like to build broad, making a character reasonably competent in several areas instead of epic in just one. (As a rule of thumb, I try to avoid gestalting classes with the same BAB or spellcasting level.)
Well, I probably wouldn't want to gestalt at a low point buy - I feel like that would push someone towards the kind of min-maxed specializing I try to avoid. XD I like to build broad, making a character reasonably competent in several areas instead of epic in just one. (As a rule of thumb, I try to avoid gestalting classes with the same BAB or spellcasting level.)
IIRC, it was something like we got a 15pt buy and they got a 25 pt buy. So, no, not super low.
if you don't have a 18 in your primary before racials and a 16/ two 14 in your secondarys with out crippling the entire rest of your character attributes that character is basically a commoner and would be better off staying at home
I disagree. I think a 17 after racials and a couple of 14's is fine- with little or no dumping.
So, 15, 14, 14, 12, 12, 10 is a great built to me, that's about 20 pts. Maybe make that 10 a 9 to come out even.
