Point buy 30? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Point buy 30? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Meshakhad
04-05-05, 09:41 PM I am going to be DMing a game in the near future, and I am planning to use point buy 30. Is this a good choice? I want slightly better characters than you get with point buy 28, but without the unpredictability of rolling.
Morwen
04-05-05, 10:12 PM Point Buy 30 makes for a pretty good game. The campaign I'm currently playing in has PB 32, which has worked out well so far. It allows people to make the character they want to play, without being too overpowered.

However, you may want to buff the opponents a bit as well :)
StevenO
04-05-05, 10:57 PM There's nothing wrong with a point buy of 30. That usually amounts to a +1 ability modifier or will get the player to but a 15+ ability with the extra couple points.

Point buy is definitely a good idea over rolling stats as your PCs are more closely balanced and making new characters is faster. A nice thing about 3x is that even moderate scores a useful unlike in 2ed where any score below a 15 was trash.
Ricky
04-06-05, 09:35 AM With a 30 point buy, here are some sample arrays you can build:

18
12
12
12
10
8

16
14
14
12
10
10

14
14
14
14
12
10
philopharynx
04-06-05, 09:42 AM Actually, our group has standardized on point buy 36... But then again, we like playing cinematic style games.
Thelon Fairblade
04-06-05, 10:09 AM I agree, 30-pt buy works for me and my players. Some players roll dice, some choose the point-buy (the 16/14/14/12/10/10 spread was chosen, in fact!), and they all end up about even.
LordArkan
04-06-05, 02:30 PM Actually, our group has standardized on point buy 36... But then again, we like playing cinematic style games.

The big thing I like about 36pt buy is the ability to get all 14s, for those crazy-MAD builds. :D
PsionicRanger
04-07-05, 12:48 PM The DMG offers an array of ways to do point-buy. I like PB 30, but I like PB 32 a little more because it offers another +2 to the mix, and in the grand scheme of things, that's not much, but it's enough to make players get a little more...does that make sense?
heretic44
04-07-05, 04:34 PM I actually use point buy for everything in my games. Its an Oriental Ebberron game, so I like it to be cinematic. Points are:

PCs = 32

Arch Villains = 35
Villains = 30
Lieutenants (Mini Villains) = 25
Elites = 20
Goons = 15

The 15 points for the goons allows the 11 11 11 10 10 10 spread that baseline baddies use. I use Elites for things like Ninjas (Human Experts) while more memorable characters like Yon'chi of the Face (Human Ninja) get the Villain Setup. Seems good so far, im a big advocate of PB over Rolling. But I also believe that any randomness during character generation is a bad thing.
Tyus Kanan
04-07-05, 06:24 PM we generally do a 24 point buy for our games, the msot recent though, was a 25 point buy for the game i am currently running.

remember, the monsters in the MM's are built towards a specific amount of points (what th DMG calls an Elite Array), if you adjust the PCs up, the monsters need to be adjusted up as well.
Lina_Inverse
04-07-05, 11:19 PM we generally do a 24 point buy for our games, the msot recent though, was a 25 point buy for the game i am currently running.

remember, the monsters in the MM's are built towards a specific amount of points (what th DMG calls an Elite Array), if you adjust the PCs up, the monsters need to be adjusted up as well.

the elite array is 25pb.
rolling averages to 30pb.

since rolling is the way in the phb,30point buy is a fair comprimise to me.
Korimyr the Rat
04-08-05, 04:51 AM I like starting at 25 and replacing the ability boost at every fourth level with extra build points every level.

Characters start with 25 +1, and end up with 85 at 20th. (Which gets eaten up real fast when they try to push stats higher than 18-20.)
Lina_Inverse
04-08-05, 07:19 AM I like starting at 25 and replacing the ability boost at every fourth level with extra build points every level.

Characters start with 25 +1, and end up with 85 at 20th. (Which gets eaten up real fast when they try to push stats higher than 18-20.)

let me check this out.going from 18-23 will cost you.....

8 for 20(correct)
18 for 22(nope)

your gonna have to upgrade the amount of points given for that to work.espilly at epic.
philopharynx
04-08-05, 09:18 AM remember, the monsters in the MM's are built towards a specific amount of points (what th DMG calls an Elite Array), if you adjust the PCs up, the monsters need to be adjusted up as well.

I do adjust the monsters up, as well. Usually in Con and Wis. I also have my players face a lot of NPC foes.
Korimyr the Rat
04-09-05, 08:39 PM let me check this out.going from 18-23 will cost you.....

8 for 20(correct)
18 for 22(nope)

I scale the number of point buy points per ability score increase based on the formula in the DMG-- one point each up to 14, two each for 15 and 16, three each for 17 and 18. I give characters 1 point for levels 1-4, 2 points for levels 5-8, and so on-- which is needed to reach 85 at 20th level.

By fourth level, if you've saved your build points, you'll have the four points you need for 19. By eighth, you'll have an additional eight points-- double the number you need for increasing a 19 to 20. At twelfth, you'll have twelve more points, allowing you to raise a 20 to a 21, and then to a 22, and still have two points left over.

It works fine. As a matter of fact, if you focus on a single ability score, starting with an 18, you can increase it to 19 at 4th, 20 at 6th, 21 at 9th (with two points left over), 22 at 10th, and 23 at 12th.
MadBlue
04-09-05, 11:09 PM I use something like a point buy system. Actually it's more of a "die buy" system. All ability scores start at 6. Each player has a pool of 12 "die rolls" (1x2, 2x2, 3x2, 4x2, 5x2, 6x2) and allots two "die rolls" to each ability score.

It's kind of like rolling 2d6+6 for ability scores, but the rolls are pre-rolled, so each character starts with an ability total of 78 points and an average of 13 in each ability score. I like it better than point buy because it makes all characters equal in point value. For example, with the ability scores generated with a 30 point point buy that Ricky posted, the characters would have ability totals of 72, 76 and 78 points, and averages of 12, 12.6 and 13, respectively.

The adversaries the party faces that are PC-classed NPCs (and that's a lot of them) are built the same way.

MadBlue
krichaiushii
04-10-05, 10:15 AM I prefer 28 points for my point buy.

And I have found a strategy that works well for me is to place odd numbers in the stats I anticipate boosting (normally a 15 in a prime attribute). This way when my PC hits 4th level, I get automatic results.

While this isn't gamebreaking in the long run, I feel better for doing so, even if my PCs are a tad weaker from levels 1-3.
cerberuspuppy
04-11-05, 04:26 AM I much prefer a point buy system. 4d6 drop lowest- that gives you a nice bell curve, but it's still too easy for the dice to completely unbalance things. What if a player rolls three 16s and three 18s? He gains a huge advantage, at no cost.

It seems every time I see a new campaign started, one guy gets uber stats, and somebody else is wracking his brain trying to squeeze the square peg of his character concept into the round hole of the bad numbers he rolled.

In cases like that, rolling randomly can actually punish someone who had a clear character concept and a good idea of what that character's scores would be like.

I just don't think something as fundamental as stats should be decided randomly. It needs to be a matter of player descision, weighing advantages with disadvantages, and yes, min/maxing.

Rolling scores randomly can be fun, but ultimately it's more trouble than it's worth.

In my new game, we're using 32 points. That may prove to be a bit much, but then again, the major villians will all be built to the same standard or higher still. For one, I can think of a powerful wizard who actually used a Tome of Leadership on himself.
Arcade
04-11-05, 09:31 PM I do the standard 4d6 method, BUT after they have rolled the stats, I let them point buy to a set amount (depending on the campaign) if they have less than that. That way, good rolls are rewarded with better stats where as bad rolls are saved by letting the player mold his character some more.

And generally, I find rolling stats has forced my players to come up with much better character concepts than they would have had they just been given the stats they wanted.
philopharynx
04-11-05, 11:42 PM I do the standard 4d6 method, BUT after they have rolled the stats, I let them point buy to a set amount (depending on the campaign) if they have less than that. That way, good rolls are rewarded with better stats where as bad rolls are saved by letting the player mold his character some more.

And generally, I find rolling stats has forced my players to come up with much better character concepts than they would have had they just been given the stats they wanted.

This is possibly the best idea I've seen. {stolen}
Talon Blackhart
04-12-05, 08:38 AM I use a point buy, but it's not quite standard. Rather than it costing more points to buy higher ability scores, everything is a 1-1 ratio. Ex: it takes 1 point to go from 10-11 and 1 ppoint to go from 16-17. Also, I start my players from base of 10, not 8. This means I don't usually give them as many points (22 for my next campaign, which seems to be about equal to a 30 point buy the standard way.), but it does kind of make the point buy system a little faster in my group.

I've tried the dice rolling (4d6, drop the lowest), but my players quit rolling dice a couple campaigns ago and just stuck in numbers they thought sounded good... This resulted in my looking for a different system.
Arcade
04-12-05, 09:20 AM I scale the number of point buy points per ability score increase based on the formula in the DMG-- one point each up to 14, two each for 15 and 16, three each for 17 and 18. I give characters 1 point for levels 1-4, 2 points for levels 5-8, and so on-- which is needed to reach 85 at 20th level.

By fourth level, if you've saved your build points, you'll have the four points you need for 19. By eighth, you'll have an additional eight points-- double the number you need for increasing a 19 to 20. At twelfth, you'll have twelve more points, allowing you to raise a 20 to a 21, and then to a 22, and still have two points left over.

It works fine. As a matter of fact, if you focus on a single ability score, starting with an 18, you can increase it to 19 at 4th, 20 at 6th, 21 at 9th (with two points left over), 22 at 10th, and 23 at 12th.

I sort of like this idea because it is more consistent- points every level to do with as you please. But the increasing points you get every 4th level only solves the problem with respect to increasing your best score and then only if it is at 18. Characters who want to get rid fo their weaknesses can now do so at practically no cost. And characters who have scores less than 18 see a large benefit as well.

Where it really comes into play is your MAD characters. Take a monk with 14 wis and dex. Normally, he could only increase these stats another 5 points, and so increase his AC by 2. With this system, the monk could raise his dex to 16 by level 4, his wis to to 16 at level 6, his dex to 18 at level 9, and so on such that at level 20 he would have 20 in wis and dex- increasing each stat by 6 points- 12 points over all and increasing his AC by 6. If you have characters with more than two important abilities, the total ability increase becomes more prominent.

Do your run into this much in your game, or have you found a way to handle it?
philopharynx
04-12-05, 10:27 AM I've tried the dice rolling (4d6, drop the lowest), but my players quit rolling dice a couple campaigns ago and just stuck in numbers they thought sounded good... This resulted in my looking for a different system.

Well, the answer to this is to make them roll the dice in your presence.

And one of the best die rolling methods I've seen is to generate three sets of stats using 4d6 drop 1. You choose the best set of stats and arrange them how you like. If the GM sees that all sets are below par, they get to let you roll a fourth time.

This is good because it doesn't saddle you with a set of poor rolls and it give you a choice. Sometimes you'll want the set with one 18, and sometime you'll want the set with three 15's.
Lina_Inverse
04-12-05, 12:24 PM Well, the answer to this is to make them roll the dice in your presence.

And one of the best die rolling methods I've seen is to generate three sets of stats using 4d6 drop 1. You choose the best set of stats and arrange them how you like. If the GM sees that all sets are below par, they get to let you roll a fourth time.

This is good because it doesn't saddle you with a set of poor rolls and it give you a choice. Sometimes you'll want the set with one 18, and sometime you'll want the set with three 15's.

no the best system is 3d6 in order.burn 2 points in any ability for 1 higher in any other ability................

then use your bps to end up with 20+ in your prime requisite.
philopharynx
04-13-05, 10:22 AM no the best system is 3d6 in order.burn 2 points in any ability for 1 higher in any other ability................

then use your bps to end up with 20+ in your prime requisite.

You are a cruel, cruel woman. :)
Lina_Inverse
04-13-05, 10:30 AM You are a cruel, cruel woman. :)

:D

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Meshakhad 04-05-05, 09:41 PM	I am going to be DMing a game in the near future, and I am planning to use point buy 30. Is this a good choice? I want slightly better characters than you get with point buy 28, but without the unpredictability of rolling.
Morwen 04-05-05, 10:12 PM	Point Buy 30 makes for a pretty good game. The campaign I'm currently playing in has PB 32, which has worked out well so far. It allows people to make the character they want to play, without being too overpowered. However, you may want to buff the opponents a bit as well :)
StevenO 04-05-05, 10:57 PM	There's nothing wrong with a point buy of 30. That usually amounts to a +1 ability modifier or will get the player to but a 15+ ability with the extra couple points. Point buy is definitely a good idea over rolling stats as your PCs are more closely balanced and making new characters is faster. A nice thing about 3x is that even moderate scores a useful unlike in 2ed where any score below a 15 was trash.
Ricky 04-06-05, 09:35 AM	With a 30 point buy, here are some sample arrays you can build: 18 12 12 12 10 8 16 14 14 12 10 10 14 14 14 14 12 10
philopharynx 04-06-05, 09:42 AM	Actually, our group has standardized on point buy 36... But then again, we like playing cinematic style games.
Thelon Fairblade 04-06-05, 10:09 AM	I agree, 30-pt buy works for me and my players. Some players roll dice, some choose the point-buy (the 16/14/14/12/10/10 spread was chosen, in fact!), and they all end up about even.
LordArkan 04-06-05, 02:30 PM	Actually, our group has standardized on point buy 36... But then again, we like playing cinematic style games. The big thing I like about 36pt buy is the ability to get all 14s, for those crazy-MAD builds. :D
PsionicRanger 04-07-05, 12:48 PM	The DMG offers an array of ways to do point-buy. I like PB 30, but I like PB 32 a little more because it offers another +2 to the mix, and in the grand scheme of things, that's not much, but it's enough to make players get a little more...does that make sense?
heretic44 04-07-05, 04:34 PM	I actually use point buy for everything in my games. Its an Oriental Ebberron game, so I like it to be cinematic. Points are: PCs = 32 Arch Villains = 35 Villains = 30 Lieutenants (Mini Villains) = 25 Elites = 20 Goons = 15 The 15 points for the goons allows the 11 11 11 10 10 10 spread that baseline baddies use. I use Elites for things like Ninjas (Human Experts) while more memorable characters like Yon'chi of the Face (Human Ninja) get the Villain Setup. Seems good so far, im a big advocate of PB over Rolling. But I also believe that any randomness during character generation is a bad thing.
Tyus Kanan 04-07-05, 06:24 PM	we generally do a 24 point buy for our games, the msot recent though, was a 25 point buy for the game i am currently running. remember, the monsters in the MM's are built towards a specific amount of points (what th DMG calls an Elite Array), if you adjust the PCs up, the monsters need to be adjusted up as well.
Lina_Inverse 04-07-05, 11:19 PM	we generally do a 24 point buy for our games, the msot recent though, was a 25 point buy for the game i am currently running. remember, the monsters in the MM's are built towards a specific amount of points (what th DMG calls an Elite Array), if you adjust the PCs up, the monsters need to be adjusted up as well. the elite array is 25pb. rolling averages to 30pb. since rolling is the way in the phb,30point buy is a fair comprimise to me.
Korimyr the Rat 04-08-05, 04:51 AM	I like starting at 25 and replacing the ability boost at every fourth level with extra build points every level. Characters start with 25 +1, and end up with 85 at 20th. (Which gets eaten up real fast when they try to push stats higher than 18-20.)
Lina_Inverse 04-08-05, 07:19 AM	I like starting at 25 and replacing the ability boost at every fourth level with extra build points every level. Characters start with 25 +1, and end up with 85 at 20th. (Which gets eaten up real fast when they try to push stats higher than 18-20.) let me check this out.going from 18-23 will cost you..... 8 for 20(correct) 18 for 22(nope) your gonna have to upgrade the amount of points given for that to work.espilly at epic.
philopharynx 04-08-05, 09:18 AM	remember, the monsters in the MM's are built towards a specific amount of points (what th DMG calls an Elite Array), if you adjust the PCs up, the monsters need to be adjusted up as well. I do adjust the monsters up, as well. Usually in Con and Wis. I also have my players face a lot of NPC foes.
Korimyr the Rat 04-09-05, 08:39 PM	let me check this out.going from 18-23 will cost you..... 8 for 20(correct) 18 for 22(nope) I scale the number of point buy points per ability score increase based on the formula in the DMG-- one point each up to 14, two each for 15 and 16, three each for 17 and 18. I give characters 1 point for levels 1-4, 2 points for levels 5-8, and so on-- which is needed to reach 85 at 20th level. By fourth level, if you've saved your build points, you'll have the four points you need for 19. By eighth, you'll have an additional eight points-- double the number you need for increasing a 19 to 20. At twelfth, you'll have twelve more points, allowing you to raise a 20 to a 21, and then to a 22, and still have two points left over. It works fine. As a matter of fact, if you focus on a single ability score, starting with an 18, you can increase it to 19 at 4th, 20 at 6th, 21 at 9th (with two points left over), 22 at 10th, and 23 at 12th.
MadBlue 04-09-05, 11:09 PM	I use something like a point buy system. Actually it's more of a "die buy" system. All ability scores start at 6. Each player has a pool of 12 "die rolls" (1x2, 2x2, 3x2, 4x2, 5x2, 6x2) and allots two "die rolls" to each ability score. It's kind of like rolling 2d6+6 for ability scores, but the rolls are pre-rolled, so each character starts with an ability total of 78 points and an average of 13 in each ability score. I like it better than point buy because it makes all characters equal in point value. For example, with the ability scores generated with a 30 point point buy that Ricky posted, the characters would have ability totals of 72, 76 and 78 points, and averages of 12, 12.6 and 13, respectively. The adversaries the party faces that are PC-classed NPCs (and that's a lot of them) are built the same way. MadBlue
krichaiushii 04-10-05, 10:15 AM	I prefer 28 points for my point buy. And I have found a strategy that works well for me is to place odd numbers in the stats I anticipate boosting (normally a 15 in a prime attribute). This way when my PC hits 4th level, I get automatic results. While this isn't gamebreaking in the long run, I feel better for doing so, even if my PCs are a tad weaker from levels 1-3.
cerberuspuppy 04-11-05, 04:26 AM	I much prefer a point buy system. 4d6 drop lowest- that gives you a nice bell curve, but it's still too easy for the dice to completely unbalance things. What if a player rolls three 16s and three 18s? He gains a huge advantage, at no cost. It seems every time I see a new campaign started, one guy gets uber stats, and somebody else is wracking his brain trying to squeeze the square peg of his character concept into the round hole of the bad numbers he rolled. In cases like that, rolling randomly can actually punish someone who had a clear character concept and a good idea of what that character's scores would be like. I just don't think something as fundamental as stats should be decided randomly. It needs to be a matter of player descision, weighing advantages with disadvantages, and yes, min/maxing. Rolling scores randomly can be fun, but ultimately it's more trouble than it's worth. In my new game, we're using 32 points. That may prove to be a bit much, but then again, the major villians will all be built to the same standard or higher still. For one, I can think of a powerful wizard who actually used a Tome of Leadership on himself.
Arcade 04-11-05, 09:31 PM	I do the standard 4d6 method, BUT after they have rolled the stats, I let them point buy to a set amount (depending on the campaign) if they have less than that. That way, good rolls are rewarded with better stats where as bad rolls are saved by letting the player mold his character some more. And generally, I find rolling stats has forced my players to come up with much better character concepts than they would have had they just been given the stats they wanted.
philopharynx 04-11-05, 11:42 PM	I do the standard 4d6 method, BUT after they have rolled the stats, I let them point buy to a set amount (depending on the campaign) if they have less than that. That way, good rolls are rewarded with better stats where as bad rolls are saved by letting the player mold his character some more. And generally, I find rolling stats has forced my players to come up with much better character concepts than they would have had they just been given the stats they wanted. This is possibly the best idea I've seen. {stolen}
Talon Blackhart 04-12-05, 08:38 AM	I use a point buy, but it's not quite standard. Rather than it costing more points to buy higher ability scores, everything is a 1-1 ratio. Ex: it takes 1 point to go from 10-11 and 1 ppoint to go from 16-17. Also, I start my players from base of 10, not 8. This means I don't usually give them as many points (22 for my next campaign, which seems to be about equal to a 30 point buy the standard way.), but it does kind of make the point buy system a little faster in my group. I've tried the dice rolling (4d6, drop the lowest), but my players quit rolling dice a couple campaigns ago and just stuck in numbers they thought sounded good... This resulted in my looking for a different system.
Arcade 04-12-05, 09:20 AM	I scale the number of point buy points per ability score increase based on the formula in the DMG-- one point each up to 14, two each for 15 and 16, three each for 17 and 18. I give characters 1 point for levels 1-4, 2 points for levels 5-8, and so on-- which is needed to reach 85 at 20th level. By fourth level, if you've saved your build points, you'll have the four points you need for 19. By eighth, you'll have an additional eight points-- double the number you need for increasing a 19 to 20. At twelfth, you'll have twelve more points, allowing you to raise a 20 to a 21, and then to a 22, and still have two points left over. It works fine. As a matter of fact, if you focus on a single ability score, starting with an 18, you can increase it to 19 at 4th, 20 at 6th, 21 at 9th (with two points left over), 22 at 10th, and 23 at 12th. I sort of like this idea because it is more consistent- points every level to do with as you please. But the increasing points you get every 4th level only solves the problem with respect to increasing your best score and then only if it is at 18. Characters who want to get rid fo their weaknesses can now do so at practically no cost. And characters who have scores less than 18 see a large benefit as well. Where it really comes into play is your MAD characters. Take a monk with 14 wis and dex. Normally, he could only increase these stats another 5 points, and so increase his AC by 2. With this system, the monk could raise his dex to 16 by level 4, his wis to to 16 at level 6, his dex to 18 at level 9, and so on such that at level 20 he would have 20 in wis and dex- increasing each stat by 6 points- 12 points over all and increasing his AC by 6. If you have characters with more than two important abilities, the total ability increase becomes more prominent. Do your run into this much in your game, or have you found a way to handle it?
philopharynx 04-12-05, 10:27 AM	I've tried the dice rolling (4d6, drop the lowest), but my players quit rolling dice a couple campaigns ago and just stuck in numbers they thought sounded good... This resulted in my looking for a different system. Well, the answer to this is to make them roll the dice in your presence. And one of the best die rolling methods I've seen is to generate three sets of stats using 4d6 drop 1. You choose the best set of stats and arrange them how you like. If the GM sees that all sets are below par, they get to let you roll a fourth time. This is good because it doesn't saddle you with a set of poor rolls and it give you a choice. Sometimes you'll want the set with one 18, and sometime you'll want the set with three 15's.
Lina_Inverse 04-12-05, 12:24 PM	Well, the answer to this is to make them roll the dice in your presence. And one of the best die rolling methods I've seen is to generate three sets of stats using 4d6 drop 1. You choose the best set of stats and arrange them how you like. If the GM sees that all sets are below par, they get to let you roll a fourth time. This is good because it doesn't saddle you with a set of poor rolls and it give you a choice. Sometimes you'll want the set with one 18, and sometime you'll want the set with three 15's. no the best system is 3d6 in order.burn 2 points in any ability for 1 higher in any other ability................ then use your bps to end up with 20+ in your prime requisite.
philopharynx 04-13-05, 10:22 AM	no the best system is 3d6 in order.burn 2 points in any ability for 1 higher in any other ability................ then use your bps to end up with 20+ in your prime requisite. You are a cruel, cruel woman. :)
Lina_Inverse 04-13-05, 10:30 AM	You are a cruel, cruel woman. :) :D