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6 years ago ::
Sep 10, 2007 - 6:28PM
#31
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Date Joined:
Dec 15, 2006
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Ditto, on the point buy. Pick an "official" power level, that the game can be adjusted to, and have a point buy... Even if it is a 25 pt. buy.
Agreed -.-
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6 years ago ::
Sep 10, 2007 - 7:03PM
#32
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Date Joined:
Aug 30, 2007
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I remember a big analysis of point buy vs. rolling on the ENworld site a few years back. If I remember right, the one-standard-deviation spread on 4d6-drop-the-lowest, discard-if-modifiers-sum-below-0 rolling (i.e. standard 3E rolling) was somewhere around 20±10. That is, ~70% of die rolls fall between 10 and 30 point point buy, and ~30% are either higher than 30 or lower than 10.
And I believe the general feeling at the time was that a difference of ten points in point buy was about the equivalent in power to one ECL. So you have a pretty good chance of getting both a Mr. Lucky with 30 point-buy equivalent and Mr. Unlucky with 10 point-buy equivalent sitting down at the table together, and having their characters vary in power by a couple of levels—this is particularly the case at low levels. At higher levels, class abilities become more dominant, but there’s still a big difference between the guy who started with an 18 in his spell-casting stat and the guy who started with a 14, because that was the highest roll he got. If that.
That, along with the fact that point buy can be done at home, instead of having to be done at the table with the DM, got us switched over. And I think it was more because of the statistical analysis of how variable 4d6 drop the lowest really is. Our DM was a die-hard die-roller before that point, and he really couldn’t hold out against the argument.
If stats had a more minor role (say: 10-13 = +0, 14-17 = +1, 18 = +2, instead of 10-11 = +0, 12-13 = +1, 14-15 = +2, ...) then the difference in points would be a lot less severe. More like a one-level difference between the luckiest and the unluckiest guys at the table. And then it might be reasonable to consider. But at the same time, it would only be doing that by decreasing the difference stats can make at any time.
Better to give players the ability to customize their characters—design them to fit a character concept, with constraints to prevent minmaxing. And it ends up working pretty well. Can you sacrifice dump stats to get an 18 in your primary stat with a standard point buy? Sure. Are you hurting yourself more than helping yourself? Absolutely. Much better to take a 15 or 16 in your primary stat so you can have other stats that aren’t wretched than to take an 18 and be a one-trick pony. Even a straight-up melee fighter needs a better distribution of stats than that—especially if he wants to do anything more than Power Attack all day long.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 10, 2007 - 7:14PM
#33
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Date Joined:
Nov 29, 2001
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Sign me up for point buy officially replacing rolling. I also prefer fixed hit points to rolled hit dice on leveling up. Both for the same reason: randomness if fun for things within the game itself, but annoying when one roll has a permanent lasting effect on how the game has to be scaled. I played in a group once where the barbarian had a 13 strength and had rolled a 1, 1, and 2 for his hit points at level 2, 3, and 4. The wizard had more survivability than he did even when he was out of spells.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 10, 2007 - 8:16PM
#34
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2006
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i won't speak of 4, cuz i just don't know it, but to be honest, i use rolls as a way to determine what my Char is. though, as a dm point buy is good, as it let me have Chars that not only have easily measurable power level, but I know thats what everything was balanced against, its easy for an otherwise legit build to become broken if they get 18 18 17 16 14 11 (an actual roll) that said point by really hits MAD Char concepts, and boosts SAD ones. I know for sure if I TPK, I will use 28 or probly 25 point buy for the characters.
I am in favor though, of doing Random roll, I prefer it as a player, though not as a dm
The essential theme song-
Get a little bit a fluff da' fluff, get a little bit a fluff da' fluff! (ooh yeah) Repeat
Unless noted otherwise every thing I post is my opinion, and probably should be taken as tongue in cheek any way.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 10, 2007 - 9:39PM
#35
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Date Joined:
Aug 25, 2007
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I'd be happier with point buy if it started at a default 10 stat instead of 8. Yes its just semantics but I hate blowing 12 of my 25 points just to become average in my stats.
In my games I give the option 28 point buy or 4d6 drop lowest arrange as you want. Just don't ***** to me about bad rolls since you had the choice from the get go you greedy bastich.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 10, 2007 - 11:56PM
#36
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I never liked the standard point buy, it makes PC's too average, too me personally a "heroic" character should be HEROIC. Plus the group I play with we tend to be stingy with magic so giving stats a bit more umph seems practical. For truly munchkin run we use a 93 point buy (Starting from zero it can yield 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13 for it stats or some other combination). To each their own.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 11, 2007 - 5:14AM
#37
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Date Joined:
Oct 19, 2006
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Sign me up for point buy officially replacing rolling. I also prefer fixed hit points to rolled hit dice on leveling up. Both for the same reason: randomness if fun for things within the game itself, but annoying when one roll has a permanent lasting effect on how the game has to be scaled.
My. How... Orwellian.
No true variance. Thanks to point buy optimization, every fighter at my table will have the same stats and HP. If you are going this far, why not simply have three iconic characters for each class (one per power level) with no rules for character generation and be done with it? It would ensure that people haven't cheated on their rolls and guarantee that each character is playable. 
Yes, the PB crowd can deluge me with horror stories about how their gaming experience was somehow sullied because the people at their table had vastly different stats. While I am truly glad that they somehow managed to soldier on through that hardship and managed to survive until the Point Buy system, like a leather-clad Daniel Day-Lewis rescued them in the wilderness, I am somehow fresh faced enough to accept my players at their word when they come to me with a character.
By all means, put both in there. I am not harmed by what system(s) my players use. I allow both in my games currently and will continue to do so.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 11, 2007 - 5:57AM
#38
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Date Joined:
Mar 26, 2007
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like a leather-clad Daniel Day-Lewis rescued them in the wilderness
"I will find you!"
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6 years ago ::
Sep 11, 2007 - 6:16AM
#39
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Date Joined:
Aug 27, 2007
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To start off, I’ll admit. I’m a point buy advocate. But I wonder what the “default” character creation method be in 4th edition? Will the game designers finally give up the proud nail from 1E of randomly generated stats? Will the DMG’s section on controlling player power level talk of how many points to give for different settings (and will published adventures say “for 6th level characters, high power campaign,” for that matter.) Perhaps having adventures that “high-powered” characters blaze through and not even find interesting, while low-powered characters might not even make it through.
Or will the game designers choose to keep that classic 1-E feel of a barely playable character teamed up with superman, because one got uber lucky and you rolled minimum.
Tough call.
We started using the default 4d6-discard-lowest rolling method, but after a couple of campaigns we switched to point-buy.
However, I wouldn't want the rolling method to completely disappear from the PHB. It is actually better IMHO when creating an NPC, because (1) it is faster and (2) it forces the DM to come up with different characters everytime, instead of always making the evil wizard the same :D
Perhaps the best way is to include both, and design the point-buy so that the typical character is *slightly* worse than the average result of the rolling method. This way, a player can choose between the safe way (point-buy) and the gambling way (rolling) which on the average makes you gain something more but also carries the risk of ending up worse. A player that doesn't want to risk will never be forced to.
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6 years ago ::
Sep 11, 2007 - 9:47AM
#40
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Date Joined:
Dec 24, 2002
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If your characters are ending up the same because of ability scores and hit points, you are doing something wrong. You've got feats, skills, spell and power selections, and above all your imagination to define the characters. Character creation and advancement should be about active choices, not dice rolls.
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