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totoro wrote:

Your desire for "randomness" makes sense in a novel that has one main hero. The main character "rolled well" and his companions "rolled poorly." His companions can die off or share less (or none) of the limelight and it doesn't make any difference. The main character can even be higher level than his companions, making them even less significant.

Not true. I already stated that a good way to do it is to allow a player to roll until he has greater than 50% on his die roll following a level where he rolled poorly. This prevents the problem of people with abnormally low hit point totals.

In cooperative storytelling, though, having one character weaker than another just isn't fun. Most players like to have characters that are equivalent to their fellow players' characters. Some like to be more powerful (IMO, these are the major random-roller fans), but would get by with characters that were just equivalent to those of their fellow players. I realize that some people gain joy from the randomness of rolling hit points and ability scores, but the enjoyment is of the randomness, not the result. So for those of us who are more results-oriented, the static hit point and point buy default are probably about like the house rules we already implemented in our games.

The difference between 73 and 87 hit points is not all that much in the scheme of things. Neither character is significantly weaker than the other, and in fact, the lower of the the two might be MUCH more powerful depending on the huge number of other factors that go into figuring out power.

I have been gaming a long time and have never come across clones using point buy and static hit points. I would venture to say that random rolling results in more clones, since you cannot guide the scores as appropriate for a character concept that you have in your head. Of course, my players tend to invest some thought in an interesting concept, and point buy accordingly.

You would be wrong. So long as you can place your stats, this almost never occurs.

Haldrik wrote:

The unofficial 4E Pre-release Rules Compilation, edited by Verys Arkon, reverse-engineers the D&DXP pregenerated PCs to reconstruct the new Point Buy system. Arkon favors the persuasive mathematic analysis by Tortoro.


4e seems to use a 32-point buy system that can generate arrays like the following:




The costs to improve scores are as follows:

Score (cost per improvement)
8
9-13 (+1 point each)
14-16 (+2 points each)
17 (+3 points, total 14 points)
18 (+4 points, total 18 points)


Arkon's Rules Compilation is excellent. Check it out. Links above.

Rolling is tons better. If I roll an 18, I'm virtually guaranteed better than any point buy,

Vaeliorin wrote:

Well, while I prefer rolling, I certainly understand the point of point buy (no pun intended.) Point buy does make for much more comparable characters (nobody with 3 18s next to the guy whose highest score is a 14.) We always kind of balanced this in my games by saying to roll, and if your total modifiers didn't fall within a certain range (depending on the campaign) you had to reroll (I realize this makes odd numbers better, but it was never really an issue for us). So, while I'm not particularly enamored of point buy (at least for D&D, I prefer it in general, particularly when you have a total number of points for everything for your character, not just stats, with the 3rd edition Shadowrun point buy rules being an example) I certainly think that it's a good option to have, and probably a preferable first option (particularly when the option to play with multiple different groups becomes more common via DDI game table.)

See, in my group, we just don't care. If someone rolls 6 18's, then more power to him.

Also, I'd like to point out that the example of the 4E 20th level 20 con fighter only having 6 more hit points than a 20th level 14 con fighter is missing one very important part of the hit point equation, which is healing surges. That 20 con fighter has 3 more healing surges, so he really has an extra 111 hit points from those healing surges as well (well, assuming my math is correct.)

Not in a single fight. He will have the same as any other 20th level fighter in any given fight. He can do this in MORE fights, or heal more after the combat is over, but when needed in the thick of things, they are 6 points apart.

I am a big fan of point buy, makes for a much better balanced character. Not too Uber, not too weak (unless the player chooses such).

this thread is rather moot... and now that i have said that im going to condradict myself by posting on it!

The facts:
-DMs can and always will be able to choose how thier players generate stats, (hopefully with character consent).
-the importance of stats varries based on the campain and the character concept
-there are multiple ways to generate stats
point buy
rolling w/ allocation
rolling w/out allocation
Rolling different #s of dice
stat sets

my opinion:
i have never had more fun with a character then when i have rolled almost completely naturally (rolled 3d6s with no allocation) (the dm actually did let us swap 2 stats which i found very reasonable). the characters these stats produced were a blast, they were atually bad at things which made them very dynamic to play, (a fighter may have had low con and dex etc.)

my most powerfull characters all were derived from rolling then assigning stats (the dm usually had some rule, roll under a certain value you get a reroll)(i had a pregenerated idea for these charcters before i rolled) they became amazingly powerfull, the the point where the game was honestly not fun and the characters became drab and boring the more i played them.

as for the point buy characters i have played. the only time i have had fun with a point buy character was in an almost 80% roleplaying campain, any time i played them in another game they were just plain boring, no dimension to them. they felt like characters on a video game rather than a character i could roleplay and get into.

note: all this proves is that i prefer rolling stats in a natural fashion the specific system was roll 3d6 6 times then swap any 2 stats (if we rolled really low we got to work something out with the dm as a special bonus either to our stats or some other element of our character)

these are just my thoughts.