Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ksbsnowowl 08-19-06, 02:21 PM	Hey all, My group is still in the midst of the Red Hand of Doom, being DM'ed by another, but after that finishes in a few months, I'll be running an Eberron game for the group. The group usually does point buy as one of the players consistently rolls "too well." However, I prefer rolling, at least to some degree, as it somewhat mirrors real life in that you don't really get to exactly control how fast, tough, smart, you are, etc. There are advantages and disadvantages to both rolling and point buy. With point buy you have more control over the character you want to play. Say you wanted to play a frail but powerful wizard, but when rolling your stats your lowest roll was a 14 - that's not very frail. Rolling also can produce a wide power difference between players' characters. But point buy produces very "predictable" characters - I think almost every one of the characters in the current campaign (25 point buy) had the exact same scores, just placed in different stats. Rolling just seems a bit more "organic" or "realistic" in providing different scores. And let's face it - everyone loves the excitement of rolling a 17 or 18. A month or two ago there was a thread about ability score generation (sadly I cannot find it currently) that gave me an idea to balance both rolling and point buy. I will admit this is a little on the high side, point-buy-wise, but I have no problem with PC's that have a bit more inherant power. I'm curious as to the opinions of other posters concerning the following stat-generation method. All the PC's generate stats using 22 point buy. Then 6d4 are rolled as a group (with a typical group each PC would roll a single d4, while the DM rolled 2d4), and the resulting numbers (1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, for example) are then assigned on top of the PC's 22 point buy. Also, by having it be a group combined roll, it helps keep everyone on equal footing - they all have the exact same numbers to work with. For example, two different PC's decide to buy the following stats: Fighter Str: 15 (8 points) Dex: 12 (4 points) Con: 14 (6 points) Int: 10 (2 points) Wis: 10 (2 points) Cha: 8 (0 points) and Wizard Str: 8 (0 points) Dex: 12 (4 points) Con: 14 (6 points) Int: 16 (10 points) Wis: 10 (2 points) Cha: 8 (0 points) The group then rolls 4d6, with results of 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4 These results are then added, as the players see fit, to their previous scores, but just as with point buy and rolling, they cannot attain a score above 18 prior to racial mods. Figher Str: 18 Dex: 15 Con: 18 Int: 12 Wis: 12 Cha: 9 and Wizard Str: 10 Dex: 16 Con: 18 Int: 18 Wis: 13 Cha: 9 Perhaps that is too powerful, and I should drop the point buy to 20? Thoughts?
Koesherbacon 08-19-06, 02:37 PM	That's pretty much how my group does it! We tend to like high powered characters (I know its not that realistic) but when we play, we like to be as powerful as heros as we can. We are not that serious as gamers, we would rather play to have a good time and blow off some steam from work and graduate school than abide completely by the rules, if that makes sense. I'd say if you and your group just want to have a good time use that system you described -- it might give powerful characters but at the same time they can incorporate the quintessential heros we all admire.
NineInchNall 08-19-06, 02:39 PM	Well, it looks pretty good to me, actually. The one thing I'd say is let the rolls happen before the point buy. It seems silly otherwise, as you'd end up with wasted rolls, etc.