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OK after all the bickering from either side bored me to death, might as well pitch into the fray.

Do I miss rolling stats? Well in a way I do; after all, I really didn't mind trying like hell to get 18/99 as my STR value in Baldur's Gate II if I was playing a fighter, and as other classes it seemed pretty logical that the best way to do things is get 50+ rolls, see which ones allow me the most number of stat points, then redistribute it as I see fit. It also made me realize several flaws in the stat-rolling system:

• If your DM allows for an infinite number of rerolls per stat until you get what you want, you will likely end up with maximum primary/secondary/tertiary stats, with the rest left to 10 or lower
  
• If your DM only allows reroll on certain instances, it's likely you'd end up either rerolling your primary stats since the possibility of getting a 1-6 is the same as your possibility to get 14-20 in your stat
  

Although the mention of creating a class first then shaping the stats from there, and the possibility of just rolling 6x then distributing as necessary would make it still a decent option nevertheless.

So what's so good with the point-buying system? Well aside from being balanced -- and note that balanced does not mean equal in everything -- it also helps maintain a bit more control on the stat development.

From what I see in comparing point-buying to stat-rolling, the only real advantage is that you may get better stats than average, but at the same time the disadvantage is that you may get worse stats than average (and while yes some of us do want to be above the "average", my use of the word average is not necessarily average players, but rather average rolls, assuming that, just like the logic of "take 10", average roll = 10).

Role-playing wise? An INT 6 character will still be able to roleplay even with INT 8, since it still signifies that you have subpar intellect, although if you really want to RP an INT 6 character you may as well label him as a gibbering idiot, and anyone with 1 INT having the brainpower of an earthworm or less (since 0 INT means that a mindflayer has effectively eaten out your brain, congratulations you are now literally brainless).

EDIT: Heck, you could roleplay as an idiot even with 20 INT -- either you're trying to bluff someone, or you're an autistic who is extremely smart but can't function as normal people would.

Mechanic-wise? If your concern is mainly primary stat highest, secondary stat second-highest, and whatever is left pretty much dump stat, the only way stat rolling would be better is if you easily roll 19s or 20s with normal dice (potentially boosting your character to 22); otherwise racial bonus + 18 = 20 or 16 + racial bonus = 18, which is normally some of the best rolls you can muster......... only without having to roll. Then whatever is left can be distributed as necessary.


Overall, I'm thinking point buying is more or less an averaging of all the rolls (and taking 2 points from one of the stats to provide for more variety), and over a longer course of character creation, although it may provide you more interesting characters from time to time, would pretty much give you more or less the same as if you did point buying (maybe a bit higher for some, and a bit lower for others, but on average it ought to statistically come out the same for let's say 200 characters per person assuming that the person doesn't insist on rolling and re-rolling until he gets the maximum stat points he can get [which is pretty much cheating and abusing the system]).

Since point buying is less abusable, I'm sticking with it in 4e. Not that rolling is inherently bad, it's just that the unpredictability can be good, bad or outright ridiculous depending on who uses it and how they make their characters.

Fleck wrote:

point buy has always been the method I prefered and I'm quite happy that it's the standard method for generating stats now.

This is the only part of your post I had issue with. The 4th ed PHB gave 3 methods and states "You can use one of three methods to generate ability scores." I can find no mention of a preferred method. The closest statement I can find is where it cautions the player when using the rolling method.

Looking at the sample arrays they all range from a total bonus of what +5 to +7. The rolling guidelines are +4 to +8. not much of a difference. Either method should work just fine for most campaigns. As always I would leave it to player's choice.

Pyke_Moonshadow wrote:

This is the only part of your post I had issue with. The 4th ed PHB gave 3 methods and states "You can use one of three methods to generate ability scores." I can find no mention of a preferred method. The closest statement I can find is where it cautions the player when using the rolling method.

Looking at the sample arrays they all range from a total bonus of what +5 to +7. The rolling guidelines are +4 to +8. not much of a difference. Either method should work just fine for most campaigns. As always I would leave it to player's choice.

Really? Let me get out my book.

What the... I could have sworn... Must have been wishful thinking. But hey, standard array is really just another point buy array. So point buy beats rolling two to one. :P

Where's the delete button? Jeez.

Me! ME! ME!