Post/Author/DateTime	Post
cthulhu42 12-27-04, 04:09 AM	Im starting a new game soon and thus far have told the players to use the point buy method outlined in the DMG. In there it says to use 25 points as a starting pool, but I've also seen may posts here that refer to a 28 point buy. It seems almost to have become standard. I wanted to ask ya'll other DMs if they have an opinion on this. Is the extra 3 points too much? too little? Ive looked over some of my players PC's and they are definatly weaker than your aveage PC, at least at my table. That, however, may be good for the game. Still, i like the players to feel that they are better than Joe Average. They are heroes, after all. So, where do most of you land on this issue?
ShadowDragon8685 12-27-04, 04:17 AM	Personally, I find that my players revolt at the idea of anything below 38 point buy. They've demanded as high as 48. I'd say go with 32 or 34. Let 'em have fun.
penchant 12-27-04, 04:33 AM	Work backwards. Write up an adventurer NPC and give him the stats you think he should have. Then figure out how many points you would need to get him there. Give that many points to your players. Easy!
Roxlimn 12-27-04, 05:23 AM	I use 28 point buy almost exclusively and it seems to work great.
Zan 12-27-04, 05:39 AM	I've always used 30. :)
Cantankerous 12-27-04, 06:04 AM	It all depends on your style and what YOU think as DM is appropriate. I like the PC's in my game world to be heroic in stature, but not the utterly ridiculous figures of comicbookdom or hentai, so I tend to go with the 28 point buy myself, when I ue that method. The 32 point buy seems way to much and the 25 seems just a bit too normal for my tastes. The 28 is enough for a heroic starting character, as long as your players haven't been raised on Kami Hami Ha. Isshia
The Man from Uncle 12-27-04, 06:47 AM	You know, i've never even played point buy (and don't know how it works beyond everyone having apparently the same stat capacity). Whats the attraction? Surely all the characters will just end up being roughly as good as each other and isn't that a bit boring? Rolling seems more exciting. If you role high it's rewarding and gives you the chance to play the hero (perhaps for a change), and if you get low it's challenging and fun to make someone who does not rely on pure power. In terms of dice rolling what is a 28 point buy equivialent too? 4d6 drop lowest, 2 sets?
Roxlimn 12-27-04, 07:03 AM	Roughly it would translate into 4d6 drop the lowest, arrange as desired. Most 4d6 characters generated this way tend to be within an ability modifier point or so from 28 point buy characters.
krichaiushii 12-27-04, 08:26 AM	The Man from Uncle: The attraction is that the PCs are all roughly the same power level. The argument that people are not created equally is considered and holds true when the PCs are compared to the common folk of the campaign world (normally 22-25 point buy). It can be used to prevent (or at least discourage) cheating, as well. Not too mention speeding up PC-making in the middle of the game or pregame (no need to find the DM or someone else to verify rolls. Besides, the 3.x edition is "balanced" on 4 PCs with the standard array, which is also a 25 point buy. Anything more than that hedges things the PCs' way. As for myself, I prefer 28-point buy. Go figure.
The Master Weaver Is Warped 12-27-04, 08:46 AM	We play a pretty high powered game, and use 36 points. This would be straight 14's if distributed evenly. DM instituted it because of a less than honorable player, but has kept it even after that player is gone because it works and no one's complained.
sulthon 12-27-04, 09:03 AM	in a game my friend is running, he used a 31 point buy (not 32), which has so far worked out great (i personally like rolling the stats, and do so for my own game, but the point-buy evens the playing field). not too powerful, not too weak... just right
lostinabook247 12-27-04, 09:39 AM	The question is not whether your player's characters are better than Joe Average (a 25 point buy or even less will guarantee that) but whether they are better than Joe Average Adventurer. What sort of story are you running, one where they are just part of a pack of adventurers trying to make their way in the world, or are they true heroes that rise above the rest to save (or destroy, if you want) the world? If the former, go with 25 point buy, 28 if you think they're slightly more competent than an NPC adventurer. For a more heroic campaign, bring it up as high as you want, and you think is reasonable. I personally like this style the most as a player or DM, PCs seem more powerful so it's more fun, yet they're not overpowered making the game too easy, as long as the DM makes similarly elite monsters or simply makes more of them. Besides a high point buy (40+, maybe), another methodfor getting powerful characters are simply rerolling the standard 4D6 drop one until everyone is happy and around the same level (with the DM stepping in if someone holds out for better after rolling stats that add up to more than 80). I like this better because it makes stats more organic, rather than every wizard having Str 8 with point buy, and also because rolling is fun.
zioth 12-27-04, 09:45 AM	For reference, Joe Average has 10.5 in every stat. That's 15-point buy. People get used to thinking of 12 or 13 as "average," but that's not the way the system was built. Personally, I dislike point-buy for two reasons: 1) It's very hard to raise a stat to 17 or 18. 2) It's against the rules to lower a stat below 8. I like flawed characters, and 8 is just slightly below average.
Nom 12-27-04, 09:45 AM	25 points is what the game is calibrated around, and is the value of the array used for "elite" opponents and NPCs. Non-elite opponents and NPCs use either 13,12,11,10,9,8 or 11,11,11,10,10,10 (both equivalent to 15 points or 3d6). Default PH creation (best 3 of 4d6, plus 'hopeless character' reroll) works out at about 30 points, but might be marked down a point or two due to lack of control. The variance is very high, however. 25 points thus makes for a 'fair' game - the PCs are at the expected power level wrt the MM CRs. They are as tough as the "tough" opponents, but stronger than the masses. 28-30 points gives most chars +2 to +4 ability score points, typically in their most important scores (like a free, stackable ability enhancer amulet). This is a noticeable handicap in the PCs favour, but not overwhelming. Anything much above 30 starts throwing game balance off, since characters have enough points to maximize their "main" score without crippling their other scores. The typical result is devastating damage from melee PCs and hard-to-beat DCs from spell-slingers. Some players like cakewalks, however. The powergamer in me wants to creep those points up, which is why I went with a 30 point build last game. Next game, I'd favour 28, mainly because I'm a softie and want to give the PCs a bit of an advantage. If you're a softie, go 28. If you want to make them earn their keep, go 25. As to "why point buy"? (1) It makes for a calibrated game. While "fair" might not be "realistic", it's a lot easier for a DM to make an interesting and balanced adventure if the power levels are calibrated right, and it helps avoid bad feelings among players when one character is markedly superior to another. (2) It provides control to the players. A player can craft a character that fits his concept and match the stats, rather than being limited by random roll. While some players don't care about this, others do.
alecthemad 12-27-04, 10:07 AM	I am a recent convert to the point buy system. I always liked the possiblity of having good scores across the board. I had always trusted my group of mid to late 30's players to roll up characters on their own. But one or two always seemed to have scores a little too high across the board. Finally, one of my players decided to DM and he, being an RPGA player, enforced a 28 point buy. Side note regarding the original topic. RPGA uses a 28 point buy so that is from where most of the talk likely comes. Turned out he was an awful railroading DM so the call went out and I had to start another game. I chose 32 point buy as I wanted more powerful characters in the game. My players like the point buy and have made some interesting characters with it.
The Shaman 12-27-04, 10:18 AM	I like the PC's in my game world to be heroic in stature, but not the utterly ridiculous figures of comicbookdom or hentai... Me too - 28-point buy in the D&D and Modern games that I run.
CzarGarrett 12-27-04, 10:38 AM	I don't use point buys. I go entirely with rolls or if you pre-make it, I'll look at the stats and if they're not absurd, just allow them. Most of the time its around 16, 14, 14, 13, 12, 10. Which I think is fine for most campaigns.
Phrennzy 12-27-04, 10:42 AM	I made the mistake of letting the players take whatever they wanted. I recently did an audit and checked to see how many points were spent. It ended up around 47 on avg. They are ridiculously powerful. But the players are having fun. When these guys make it to 20th level and retire and we start new PCs, I will enforce a 28-30 point buy. We'll see how that flys.
The Man from Uncle 12-27-04, 10:47 AM	krichaiushii (and others) I can see why sometimes a point buy system is necessary to some groups. But surely, if all the players are mature enough, won't a more random determination be more exciting? Being in a totally balanced team is not bad, but it is hardly interesting.
BloodGod 12-27-04, 11:05 AM	A system a lot of groups I've played in use, is an 82 point system. It's very differant from the system you're talking about, though. The way it works, is all stats start at 0. People allocate their 82 points as they see fit. That lets them get in atleast one 18 for their important stat, maybe two if they make another stat really crappy. Gives them some average stats. And some crap-stats. Works well in our groups. Just an alternative to keep in mind. Sorry to be so off topic. Thought I should throw this out there though. -BG
alecthemad 12-27-04, 11:35 AM	I don't use point buys. I go entirely with rolls or if you pre-make it, I'll look at the stats and if they're not absurd, just allow them. Most of the time its around 16, 14, 14, 13, 12, 10. Which I think is fine for most campaigns. Let us look at the point buy version of that: score=points 16 = 10 14 = 6 14 = 6 13 = 5 12 = 4 10 = 2 total = 31 pts Might as well assign a 32 point buy.
Thoronmir 12-27-04, 11:56 AM	We use a 28 point buy in most of our campaigns. We tried 25 and 32, but everyone seemed most comfortable at 28.
CzarGarrett 12-27-04, 01:25 PM	Let us look at the point buy version of that: score=points 16 = 10 14 = 6 14 = 6 13 = 5 12 = 4 10 = 2 total = 31 pts Might as well assign a 32 point buy. Why do any point buy? I don't care about that method, so long as the stat's aren't insane. If they have something like 17, 17, 16, 15, 14, 14 then I'd knock a few down to be more reasonable- but only with premade.
satyrgrrrrl 12-27-04, 01:43 PM	My group uses a default array of 25 points: 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 NPCs use the same array. Commoners have all 10's, though a more important commoner (but not quite the status of an NPC) may have a 12 in one stat. The group likes it because everyone has something high and low, and racial ability score adjustments tend to matter more. The games aren't underpowered, nor are the PCs surviving by the skin of their teeth. I use appropriate CR monsters, and sometimes the PCs trounce them, and sometimes PCs die, which is what I think is supposed to happen. Ultimately, stat generation is a group-by-group decision. Some people like 40 point buy, some like rolling dice, some like 25-point default arrays. I just like to add what my group does because many people think PCs with 25 points can't survive. None of the GMs in the group pull punches, and we survive just fine. 25 points is a viable avenue for stat generation. :) I love point buy in general, because it puts people on equal footing (a holdover from my White Wolf days, where everyone had the same number of stats), and because I like designing characters, not deciding where to go after my stats are rolled. Hope it helps! :angel:
Save-vs-DM 12-27-04, 02:20 PM	I use a 32 point buy in my games. It's a little bit above the curve, but I have good, honest players who prefer a more balanced stat approached. I have yet to see a player buy over a 16 in any one stat, to be honest. Ususally I see a 14, 14, 14, 14, 12, 12 or so buy. Sometimes I'll see a 15 or 16 thrown in. But that is my players, as I know them. We like well roudned characters. We pretty much use a 28 to 32 point buy. I find 25 just tends to make the PCs feel a little bit too "average." Then again, I use the same point buy method for all my combative NPCs that the PCs use. Cheers, SvD
clarkvalentine 12-27-04, 02:25 PM	I always use 32 point buy. I personally really don't like random chargen in D&D (although it seems to work better in ohter systems). As a GM I prefer 32 point over 25 or 28, because it gives the players a bit more competence at lower levels, and I prefer players who feel that their PCs can accomplish a thing or two. It turns out to not be that big a difference on paper between 28 and 32, but it's a big psychological difference, so that's what I go with.
Board_Rider 12-27-04, 02:30 PM	I run high powered and difficult campaigns so I let my players roll the 4d6 method.....and make 3 sets of 6 They may then take one set of six. Withing this set I allow a two for one attribute point trade off. I have also read somewhere that he/she allows a roll of 15d6. This point total equals the amount of points that a player may use to assign to stats. I really don't care how powerful PC's get. When you begin to limit players they may begin to feel cheated.
cthulhu42 12-27-04, 02:31 PM	Thanks for all the replies. As far as why I prefer the point buy over rolling, its basicly for the reasons pointed out above. We rolled stats for years and it always seemed like one player lucked into a killer set of stats while another ended up with below average, and even though these are mature players with fine role-playing skills, I know for a fact that the guy with crappy stats just didn't enjoy himself as much and always felt like the tag along. Another note: We've just finished a very long campagin in which we played 28 point buy PC's from 1st through 19th level, and we are POWERFUL now. I can't imagine how the DMed would have dealt with 32 point (or higher) PC's. That just seems awfully high to me, but I suppose its a personal thing. Anyway, thanks for all the fine input. I've decided to go with 28 point buy.
clarkvalentine 12-27-04, 02:39 PM	I played in one game where the GM just said "Come up with a character concept and assign whatever stats you think are appropriate." And nobody twinked out. Sure, we were somewhat powerful, but it wasn't ridiculous. Anyone else have an experience like that?
Cantankerous 12-27-04, 02:52 PM	krichaiushii (and others) I can see why sometimes a point buy system is necessary to some groups. But surely, if all the players are mature enough, won't a more random determination be more exciting? Being in a totally balanced team is not bad, but it is hardly interesting. Actually I've found the opposite. It took a mature group to even consider the point buy system (we tried something similiar to it back in the early nineties based on an article in a regional gamers mag) while the less mature groups were the ones slavishly clinging to "random" die rolls as a means to justify power gaming. Really, it is the leveled field that supports the mature gamer and the "random" (which seldom is unless the DM watches the die rolls... and THAT is hand holding the kiddies if anything is) roll system that usually supports the twinks. Isshia
CzarGarrett 12-27-04, 02:59 PM	I played in one game where the GM just said "Come up with a character concept and assign whatever stats you think are appropriate." And nobody twinked out. Sure, we were somewhat powerful, but it wasn't ridiculous. Anyone else have an experience like that? I/we roll most of the time, but if we/I don't, that's what we/I do.
clarkvalentine 12-27-04, 03:08 PM	Being in a totally balanced team is not bad, but it is hardly interesting. How is it interesting to have one person, from the start, significantly more/less powerful than the rest? The campaigns I'm involved with now (all point-buy) are light years more interesting than the ones I ran years ago when I did random.
ShadowDragon8685 12-27-04, 03:47 PM	I let the players decide their power level. standard 4d6, re-roll until you get a set you like, 38, 40, 42 point buy, hell, even 48... Whatever they like. After all, the game is for THEIR fun, right? As much as it is for mine. And as for MY fun, I can make anything I want to fight them, can't I? :)
Evangelos 12-27-04, 03:50 PM	28-30 points gives most chars +2 to +4 ability score points, typically in their most important scores (like a free, stackable ability enhancer amulet). This is a noticeable handicap in the PCs favour, but not overwhelming. Anything much above 30 starts throwing game balance off, since characters have enough points to maximize their "main" score without crippling their other scores. The typical result is devastating damage from melee PCs and hard-to-beat DCs from spell-slingers. Some players like cakewalks, however. I use 45 point buy in my games (though admittedly I prefer low-medium magic and place restrictions on high-end magic items). I don't think anyone will ever say that my game was anything like a cakewalk. That campaign ran from level 1 to 20 with very few encounters that were "easy." A fairly average stat array was: 18, 16, 15, 14, 12, 10
eRaz0r 12-27-04, 03:54 PM	Agreed. A games 'interest' level isn't determined by the character creation system. Do you really think giving your players the ability to control their character creation more effectively to get the character they want, within the same boundaries as the other players makes for an instantly boring game? For me, the issue of fairness is instantly eliminated and we can concentrate on making an interesting game instead of griping how so-and-so rolled two natural 18's and this guy's highest score was a 15, blah blah blah. Sure it *can* be fun to play a challenged character with a flaw or two.. but I prefer to do that by choice rather than be forced into it by chance. I remember one time, playing Darksun (2nd ed), I rolled (5d4 8 times, keep best 6, two sets -not my idea) 19,19,18,18,17,17. Does that sound particularly interesting ? Would it be inherently more interesting to play in a group with that character? Being amazingly good at almost everything actually sounds rather bland to me.
Board_Rider 12-27-04, 03:59 PM	eRaz0r makes a very good point. Sometimes if the PC's are too powerful and the game is a cakewalk then they can get bored quickly. If nothing was a challenge it might be fun plowing through stuff for awhile. However I would get tired of that and I assume many people would too.
ShadowDragon8685 12-27-04, 04:07 PM	Ability scores stop being the primary driving force behind your players' abilities around level 5 or 6, when their levelups will have outstripped their ability bonuses. HOWEVER, for those first few levels, I've learned that having exceptional ability scores can be damned-nigh VITAL for survival. A wizard who can't afford to put anything into CON because he needs it all for INT will quickly be dogmeat when that orc attacks him. If he's managed to stuff a 16 or so into CON, he may just survive. And nothing sucks more than having a characte die within twenty minutes of the game starting because you rolled two natural twenties in a row and the orc rolled full damage on his club. That's right, his club. Not even an axe or anything, just crunchy-crunch. After level 5 or so, their abilities will stop being the driving force in their rolls, and simply be a good backup for when they want to try something that falls outside the purview of their normal abilities. The Wizard trying to swim, for example. If he has an 8 str, that's not gonna work. If he has 12 or 13, he may just... And remember. Standard point-buy is set up to reward pure focus classes, like Wizard and Fighter and Barbarian. When you have a character that NEEDS high points in several scores - Cleric, Monk and Ranger come instantly to mind - to gain access to their full range of abilities, they either get shafted into being suck at everything they do, or only being able to do half of the stuff they should be able to do.
Capt. Pixel 12-27-04, 05:55 PM	A system a lot of groups I've played in use, is an 82 point system. It's very differant from the system you're talking about, though. The way it works, is all stats start at 0. People allocate their 82 points as they see fit. That lets them get in atleast one 18 for their important stat, maybe two if they make another stat really crappy. Gives them some average stats. And some crap-stats. Works well in our groups. Just an alternative to keep in mind. Sorry to be so off topic. Thought I should throw this out there though. -BG This is the way I do my characters except I go with 84 points (14 across the board). I use 84 just to stay in step with the rest of the party. Most everybody else in our group uses '4d6 drop lowest'. That method does create some ridiculous character stats, tho' (there are PCs with totals over 95 in some of our games!! :eek: ) But, as several pointed out earlier - everybody's having fun and it's not a great stretch on the DM to create a challenging encounter - even with high PC stats. :cool:
alecthemad 12-27-04, 05:57 PM	Why do any point buy? I don't care about that method, so long as the stat's aren't insane. If they have something like 17, 17, 16, 15, 14, 14 then I'd knock a few down to be more reasonable- but only with premade. The reason to do point buy is to give your players an exact measure of what you consider reasonable. Your response is the exact reason to do point buy. The players can choose the stats and you limit them via the points. You avoid the whole step of having to approve the stats and possibly knocking the higher ones down a few points. It is a good system, better than your subjective measure of reasonable. If you look at all your players stats I bet several got away with more than the others, you might as well make it fair for all concerned. If someone makes the conscious choice to not use all their points then that is his business but at least everyone is playing with an objective measure.
spasheridan 12-27-04, 06:00 PM	2 campaigns back we used a point buy system. The game was fun and everyone had a niche to fill. THe last game we were in we rolled stats. The game was fairly deadly and the attrition was high. The chars that survived were the well rolled PCs. The extra HPs from con, AC from dex, saves from it all.. they made the differance. At the end the only PCs left had say 40+ pt buy PCs. Imagine you're rolling PC #2 for the game. Next to you is the 20 str, 18 con 1/2 orc barbarian / cleric. You want to make a dwarf tank. You roll about a 25 pt character. You can't ditch it, it passes muster. You want to play a tank, you do the best you can. The 1/2 orc has + 3 to hit and damage vs you and higher AC and more HP. Some fights all you can do is dodge and defend to get your AC high enough to not get splatted. Other fights you can't hit because you need 15s and you keep rolling 12's and 14's. THe 1/2 orc hits each swing though. This is fun... how?? New campaign and we rolled again, but the first guy to roll his stats came up with another winner. Another 40+ pt buy PC. So the rest of us were given a few chances at the dice to try and "meet" the high roller. Once again the attrition was high and the power creep has kicked in... Next campaign I'm pushing for poin buy all the way.
clarkvalentine 12-27-04, 06:20 PM	This is the way I do my characters except I go with 84 points (14 across the board). I use 84 just to stay in step with the rest of the party. Mathematically, this a) washes out racial bonuses, and b) punishes races that have more penalties than bonuses to attributes (such as half-orcs), because there's a linear relationship between points spent and attribute score. With the point-buy cost system, it's not a linear relationship, making higher scores more expensive - enhancing the impact of racial bonuses/penalties. (Half-orcs get 82 points under your system, and everyone else gets 84 - together with half-orcs not being any stronger than anyone else, on average.) But, as you point, out, if everyone's having fun, it doesn't really matter.
evilgenius 12-27-04, 07:24 PM	I enforce point buy in campaigns. It's fair to the players, as there's nobody left sitting on their hands being "second fiddle" to the star character. However, I use a 30 point buy. That's the default in NeverWinter Nights, and it's a useful little character generation tool, so that's why I picked 30. In the future, I would go with 28 to be consistent with the rules. My objective is not to limit the player's power, but to keep them equal. The game setting is low-magic - and having good stats mitigates the lack magic in the world. Naturally, commoners are 10s and 11s across the board, so the PCs are Heros. One issue; I found that nobody has less than an 8 in a stat. There's a wizard who asked if he could take a lower score for extra points on a one for one basis - I had no problems with this, so we house ruled that you get one point for each stat below 8, down to 6. Nobody can have less than a 6 (that's ridiculously low). L8er evilgenius
Darkwind 12-27-04, 08:19 PM	Why not mix it up and do something different, offer a 25+1d8 point buy. cuts out the time of rolling all the scores but still leaves room for randomness, after all everyone aren't equal.
nick012000 12-27-04, 08:53 PM	My campaigns use 32 point buy.
Ongorth 12-27-04, 11:33 PM	Actually I've found the opposite. It took a mature group to even consider the point buy system (we tried something similiar to it back in the early nineties based on an article in a regional gamers mag) while the less mature groups were the ones slavishly clinging to "random" die rolls as a means to justify power gaming. Really, it is the leveled field that supports the mature gamer and the "random" (which seldom is unless the DM watches the die rolls... and THAT is hand holding the kiddies if anything is) roll system that usually supports the twinks. Isshia Again, I've found the exact opposite. The people who I see use point buy slavishly cling to the notion of balance and lose a lot of the fun of the game. They act as if the only enjoyment one can have in a role playing game is having an equal statistical chance of completing an action as there peers. They cannot conceive of being able to have fun playing a side kick or simply a bad adventurer. They cannot find ways to be useful or have fun with a character with lower stats. They say things like, "My character doesn't have the charisma to be a social character" or "I only have a 35% chance of hitting, how can I attack?" I find that mature groups just play. My group doesn't even roll stats, they just pick them. Never was a problem. Someone wants to play a superhero? Sure, why not! Might make a fun story. Someone wants to play a teacher with no battle ability? Sure, why not! Might make a fun story. We change characters so often and play people from some many walks of life a point-buy would make no sense at all. My abjuration professor's total +2 sure isn't balanced with, say, the +18 rogue, but he's not the hero of the story. If I wanted to play a big hero, I would have played someone with a +15 or so. I wanted to play the commoner caught up in the war, something Kurt Busiek would write. Its a lot of fun. And, strangely enough, more heroic when a more or less "regular guy" ends up doing something great.
Cantankerous 12-27-04, 11:41 PM	When is enough actually enough though? With a 28 point buy you can create a base character with a 16, a pair of 14's, a 12, a 10 and an 8. That's bloody formidable. Why is it neccesary, in agme that was DESIGNED to be challenging with a quartet of 25 point buy characters to have buys so high that no such person even could exist outside of the realm of fantasy. Isn't it awfully hard to identify with such a monster? Where can you develope any empathy for the character? The game is designed for a specific ideal. It IS flexible enough to bypass that ideal, but past a certain level, why bother playing? There's no real challenge, only pubescent ego gratification. The average person, taking the 10.5 average because it is also epitimal zero bonus score averaging, is a 15 point buy. Fifteen! When you start skewing so far away from the average that the PC's are no longer recognizable as reasonable characters they have no actual relationship to the game. Role playing, suppossedly the corner stone of this pass time, becomes a silly travesty. Isshia
ShadowDragon8685 12-27-04, 11:49 PM	Never wanted to play, say, Aragorn, did you? A lot of us are sick of humdrum, ordinary stated people. Most of us are those people with ordinary stats, and the only stat we can realistically raise in a reasonable time (Strength) takes quite a lot willpower, which we usually lack. We want to be a hero, and we want to go out and be a hero now damnit! To fritters with that "not having any score above a 16." I want an 18 score. I want to be an elf (with a 20 after racial ajustment) who's speed is legend, even amongst elves, or a wizard of mind-bending inteligence, or a man with the strength to lift a whole cart so the farmer can put the wheel back on.
Cantankerous 12-27-04, 11:55 PM	Again, I've found the exact opposite. The people who I see use point buy slavishly cling to the notion of balance and lose a lot of the fun of the game. They act as if the only enjoyment one can have in a role playing game is having an equal statistical chance of completing an action as there peers. They cannot conceive of being able to have fun playing a side kick or simply a bad adventurer. They cannot find ways to be useful or have fun with a character with lower stats. They say things like, "My character doesn't have the charisma to be a social character" or "I only have a 35% chance of hitting, how can I attack?" I find that mature groups just play. My group doesn't even roll stats, they just pick them. Never was a problem. Someone wants to play a superhero? Sure, why not! Might make a fun story. Someone wants to play a teacher with no battle ability? Sure, why not! Might make a fun story. We change characters so often and play people from some many walks of life a point-buy would make no sense at all. My abjuration professor's total +2 sure isn't balanced with, say, the +18 rogue, but he's not the hero of the story. If I wanted to play a big hero, I would have played someone with a +15 or so. I wanted to play the commoner caught up in the war, something Kurt Busiek would write. Its a lot of fun. And, strangely enough, more heroic when a more or less "regular guy" ends up doing something great. Onograth, what you're describing has no vague relationship to role playing. Number crunching is inelegant and usually stale and lifeless, no matter if the mehtod used to create the characters was randomized, proto randomized (the method I normally use) or strictly point buy. In this edition of D&D more than any other a great disparity in the base arrangement of the characters creates imbalances in the game that neccesisitate chasing the numbers. Otherwise you simply sit on the sidelines and play with the coke can top while the numbers monsters do all the "fun stuff". That's also why there shouldn'tr be too large a disparity in levels either. The very DESIGNED aspect of this game, with it's regularization and parity makes such disparities artificially larger than they would be otherwise. It can be fun to play super heroes. Hell, I've also run a Marvel campaign that went on for more than a decade. It can be fun to run the average Joe in WAY over his head. Likewise I've done alot with Call of Cthulhu, the ultimate in WAY over your head game. But running a Call of Cthulhu in WAY over your head character in a Marvel universe is ridiculous. Either the Game Judge has to deux ex machina constantly to keep him from being instant road kill or he isn't vaguely resembling the CoC character he started out as. THAT is the problem with great disparities in this system. The very system itself is DESIGNED to accenuate them. Isshia
Cantankerous 12-28-04, 12:13 AM	Never wanted to play, say, Aragorn, did you? A lot of us are sick of humdrum, ordinary stated people. Most of us are those people with ordinary stats, and the only stat we can realistically raise in a reasonable time (Strength) takes quite a lot willpower, which we usually lack. We want to be a hero, and we want to go out and be a hero now damnit! To fritters with that "not having any score above a 16." I want an 18 score. I want to be an elf (with a 20 after racial ajustment) who's speed is legend, even amongst elves, or a wizard of mind-bending inteligence, or a man with the strength to lift a whole cart so the farmer can put the wheel back on. Aragorn, as he was presented by Tolkein, wasn't hot boy stat wise. He was never depicted as particularly strong, he was not horrificly charismatic, he was not the be all and end of of wisdom or intelligence, and he was never depicted as having the worlds greatest dexterity either. His highest stat was probably his Con, which arguably could have been 16. Aragorn was one of those rare few who was simply above average everywhere. Boromir was the strongman of the bunch. He probably DID have about an 18 strength. But he wasn't particularly outstanding elsewhere and may have had low stas in both Wisom and Intelligence and have been very average in Dexterity and Charisma. Again, he had a high Con. Gimli might not have had a single stat above 14, including Con, although if he did have one that was really high it probably was Con. Nor was Legolas probably more thn a one trick (Dex) pony, although he would have had to have a decent Charisma as well. Damned if this isn't starting to look like a pretty D&D type array. Keep in mind that none of these guys were anything like neophytes. Gimli was probably the lowest level (although you could argue for Boromir being lowest) and he would have been 12+ easily, while Aragorn was easily the highest of the bunch (barring Gandalf, who was after all an ageless being like Sauron and indeed there are indications that they were both of the same basic nature: Maia's) at probaly 24th or so, as he had been going for over sixty plus years of almost continual campaigning. Legolas would likely have been next in line, say about 15th or so simply in that he was several thousand years old. These guys weren't stat monsters. They were heroes, in a much truer sense than stick figures like Conan cold ever hope to be. Don't get me wrong, I love Robert E Howard's characters, but they're not very empathic. They're too flawless. Isshia
ShadowDragon8685 12-28-04, 12:29 AM	Tolkein's characters as written were boring, pointless, and never had anything good happen to them. They could've been any human, even the dwarf and the elf. That's exactly what we want to avoid when gaming. I hate my real life, my pitiful stats and such. I want to be a freaking hero with a sword as big as I am, or the wizard that casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down! Normalacy sucks.
Cymraegmorgan 12-28-04, 12:34 AM	We roll, always have, always will. As DM I roll NPC stats just like the PCs. The Cleric in my party was the lucky roller, one 18, one 17, three 15s, and a 14. He is the only PC to die. When your luck is up, it is up. I tried using the point buy system just to save time with NPC creation. They came out boring. They were predictable. THey were soon replaced(those that could be) with random rolled NPCs. A more unconventional lot, but more fun. Point buys do even the playing field and prevent cheating at large events, and that is where I will leave such game devices.
satyrgrrrrl 12-28-04, 12:37 AM	Tolkein's characters as written were boring, pointless, and never had anything good happen to them. They could've been any human, even the dwarf and the elf. That's exactly what we want to avoid when gaming. I hate my real life, my pitiful stats and such. I want to be a freaking hero with a sword as big as I am, or the wizard that casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down! Normalacy sucks. I think you're missing the point. 25 point-buy characters aren't "normal". They are well above average, and very good at what they do. I highly doubt anyone posting on these forums has a 15 in anything, despite the "stat yourself" threads that were so common when 3.0 came out. Pride aside, I'd be willing to be we all have straight 10's. :P And you still can have powerful Fighters/Wizards/characters with the 25 points. But hey, if it works for your game, play with 50 points. :)
Cantankerous 12-28-04, 12:40 AM	Tolkein's characters as written were heroes. They didn't simply waltz through things untouched. THAT would be boring, stupendously boring. Tolkein's characters and his charicterization is the standard by which all others are judged. It MAY be because I'm a former Marine, because I grew up hunting and fishing and being able to live off of the land, because I CAN imagine myself in the place of Gimli, that there is an endless fascination for reasonable characters. I can empathise best with Merry from the books though, not Gimli. It's one of the reasons that I so dispised the way he was castrated in the movies. Merry was usually scared and uuually able to do what it took anyway. He was postive, proactive, ascertive and down right heroic, but untried until after the adventure began. The way he was developed was fascinating. The Goku's out there, on the other hand, or Riddick and that ilk, is utterly and stupifyingly boring. There is no way to actually empathise with such a character. isshia
satyrgrrrrl 12-28-04, 12:44 AM	The Goku's out there, on the other hand, or Riddick and that ilk, is utterly and stupifyingly boring. There is no way to actually empathise with such a character. isshia I don't think he's looking to empathize. I think he's looking for phat skillz. ;) And as much as I love Riddick, I really much more enjoyed the Lord Marshal. Man, he stole the show for me! "Convert now, or fall forever."
Ongorth 12-28-04, 12:47 AM	Cantankerous: I have no idea what you are talking about. Well, I do, but I don't see how it has any revelvance to what I said. On top of that, I don't agree with whatever you were commenting on, but that really seems besides the point. The closest I can think is that you said you ran a "Marvel" game and Kirt Busiek wrote "Marvels" which was published by "Marvel Comics," but even that is a stretch. My comment was that I noticed that mature players tended to stay away from point buys. I also commented that point buys seemed to be most used by people who can't conceive of a story without "balance" to keep everyone interested. Let me tell you straight up, even though it sounds like you've made up your mind on the topic already, the game works just fine with people of different power levels. Every RPG does. You can play Jimmy Olsen while someone else is Superman. It works. In fact, I'd go so far as to say its lots of fun. But I never even brought up that level of disparity and yet I am not only standing by my point, I am making a stronger one than I started with. Wierd. So, anyway, I stand by my point. Using the "4 equal characters" model can tell great stories, but a hero and her entourage is fun too, even if members of the entourage die a lot. I mean, how many Buckys were there, anyway? If a group can't conceive of designing a story in a manner that doesn't involve a balanced party I have a hard time considering them mature.
Palin the Wizard 12-28-04, 12:50 AM	The groups I usually play with use a standardized system. Normally, we have 86 points to spend on a point-by-point basis. I play with heroes. Not above-average characters, not middling strength characters. The heroes. The actual point pool can be lowered or raised to tether to the strength of the characters. In my recent game, I use 86 points for the PCs, and 78 points for cohorts. I believe that's roughly 36 and 30 point buy. I just don't see the sense in having 18s cost more than 14s. It's a ridiculous curve. The stats of a character doesn't matter a lick with regards to roleplaying. I get sick of people who say that players that have characters with high stats cannot roleplay, especially when it is accompainied by insulting comments.
satyrgrrrrl 12-28-04, 01:03 AM	The stats of a character doesn't matter a lick with regards to roleplaying. I get sick of people who say that players that have characters with high stats cannot roleplay, especially when it is accompainied by insulting comments. I agree completely with that. Roleplaying has nothing to do with preferred method of stat generation. Roleplaying is dipicting the stats you have, not how you get your stats. Even stats don't determine a hero; it's their actions and the story that matter. And really, it's the idea of a fun character where we disagree. I like having 8's on my characters. I like flaws; it makes what you're good at even better. Other people prefer to be fantastic at something or really good at everything. Still others want the dice to determine what their hero will be. And all that's fine. I think whatever makes your group happy is the best stat generation method. I just like to say that 25 points is a viable method, making survivable characters that can be heroes. :D
The Man from Uncle 12-28-04, 01:03 AM	Yeah, i kind of agree with Ongorth. I mean, i understand why point buy can be necessary in some groups but surely it's not needed if the group can appreciate that balance is not actually anything to do with roleplaying. Balance is something to do with combating powergaming. I loved a couple of my weaker characters (not even 25 point buyers) because they were out of their depth and relied on their more powerful friends to keep them out of trouble. It made it that much more rewarding when I actually was lucky enough to pull of a crit and knock that troll out that was ravaging the much tougher front line fighter. I earned respect. Like a hobbit that saves a battle hardened veterain knight...it's rare but worth it. I also loved my tougher characters that could selflessly through themselves infront of the weakling wizard to save him from harm. The bravado and coolness of it was wonderful. But with point buy it seems these joys are less likely because everyone is equal. A place for every character and every character in their place.....its just not inspiring, its mundane.
Ongorth 12-28-04, 01:04 AM	Palin: No doubt. If I hear one more reference to a blind, lame Kobold I'm going to cry. Well, after this one. If the comic book industry has taught me anything, its that a character is only as good as its writer. One need only to read 70's Batman and compare it to Jeff Loeb's or Frank Miller's to know the massive disparity in how much the depth of a character changes depending on the writer. So it is with roleplaying too. It doesn't what is being played as much as who is playing in it. I know in my World's Greatest Gaming Group I am the only person who regularly plays losers. Maybe it has something to do with me. Either way, everyone else generally plays high end of the curve characters and yet they all play better than me, considering I am the World's Worst Player. Except when I play my abjuration professor. I'm pretty rock solid with him. In any case, my "I can't play a social character with low charisma" comment was a stab at someone, but I forget who. It certainly wasn't you Palin, you are a hero in my heart.
Palin the Wizard 12-28-04, 01:21 AM	Satyrgrrrrl: I guess I just don't like to have my character concepts limited by the amount of stats the DM decides to give, or whatever I roll with the dice. I like rolling, but whenever I do, I roll first, then build up a character around them. The other way around usually won't work, and it's incredibly frustrating. I don't mind everyone being "equal" in terms of stats. Trust me, even with equal stats, people are different, and will develop their characters differently. One of the players in my upcoming game doesn't care much about the stats at all. She's playing a blind monk wielding a quarterstaff, and asked if she could use a PrC that she took off these boards in order to not be completely useless. She's probably the only person I would allow to use a class I hadn't really checked over, because I know she wouldn't have picked it for power (she picked it in order to just be able to fight). Others in my group weigh every option, look through every book, and examine every aspect, every crook and nanny that could possibly be exploited to gain power with their characters. Exaggerated, of course, but sometimes, it seems like they do. Luckily, they don't go overboard. (Especially since about half of my group are powergamers. We have 4, and I'm a semi-powergamer myself. Yes, it's a large group. Yikes.) I'm sure we're going to have a blast, and I'll most likely have to scale quite a few of the encounters in order to balance everything out. :) Ongorth: Whee! I'm a hero! :D
satyrgrrrrl 12-28-04, 01:29 AM	Satyrgrrrrl: I guess I just don't like to have my character concepts limited by the amount of stats the DM decides to give, or whatever I roll with the dice. I like rolling, but whenever I do, I roll first, then build up a character around them. The other way around usually won't work, and it's incredibly frustrating. For me, I never feel my characters concepts are limited because of the default array. I decide what I want, and put stats to fit. I actually do enjoy having an 8 on my character somewhere, and given a point buy, I usually end up with one. I don't usually come up with characters that are good at everything... mostly because I find them boring, but also because I know I'll be using the default array. But like I said, whatever works for your group is the best. :D PS - Thanks to everyone keeping a level head about this. I've found that stat generation "discussions" tend to degenerate into "Mine is better!" "NO, MINE IS BETTER!" arguments.
Nom 12-28-04, 01:48 AM	Why not mix it up and do something different, offer a 25+1d8 point buy. cuts out the time of rolling all the scores but still leaves room for randomness, after all everyone aren't equal.This is the worst of both worlds. Rather than have a calibrated scale where everyone is equal, or give everyone a set of uncalibrated values, lets take a calibrated scale and explicitly give people different point values. This is 'we must have randomness' taken to its logical, flawed extreme. As for scores, a lot of the confusion comes between scores and level. Both give a significant power boost to a character. Both are accounted for in the default game mechanics. However, levels are self-scaling, while the only mechanic for compensating for non-standard scores is LA. If you wish your characters to be more powerful, consider giving them levels rather than ability scores, since levels are already accounted for in the game's balancing mechanics.
Cune 12-28-04, 02:20 AM	25 is best, 28 is playable, any point on top is a problem. I wouldn't even consider playing in a Campaign with 32+. That's no question of campaign style, its a pure Question of Balance. 25 is balanced, 28 is a bit balanced, more is just unbalanced
Riznar 12-28-04, 02:48 AM	I run humanoid heavy games, everyone's got levels! We use 30 point buy because NWN introduced me to it. And because everyone (PCs and NPCs) have the same point spread, I don't have to worry about balanced stats.
The Man from Uncle 12-28-04, 03:14 AM	Can somebody tell me what this obsession with balance is? It's like a mantra for some players/dms. When did balance start to become an objective factor regarding the quality or enjoyment of roleplaying? In certain circumstances it has an effect, but that effect does not necessarily make things better or worse. It's an unrelated variable. To me it sounds like accepting point buy is accepting that you and/or your group has short comings as roleplayers and as such needs a safety rule in play to stop things getting out of hand in terms of power. I do understand that game mechanics do rely on the PCs roughly being of a certain power level, but that can be equally achieved by rolling dice. You just have to accept that the balance will be across the team, with some weaker than others. Eventually, sadly the weaker ones will probably end up perishing before the stronger ones, but that won't make them any less great to play. I loath the 'may stats are too low for me to have a good time' attitude. And saying 'But by having higher stats i will have more chance to roleplay' is just bollox. Roleplaying has nothing to do with stats and surviving has little to do with brawn. (this being true assuming that the game mechanics are balanced across the team, if not the individual). I don't like using catch-phrases or cliches but there is something to lemons and lemonade that i can't help but think rings true. And life without lemonade.... well it's just less of a life.
ShadowDragon8685 12-28-04, 03:30 AM	You don't survive to roleplay if you can't rollplay. And if your stats are pure suck, chances are you're not gonna survive the lower levels.
Cantankerous 12-28-04, 06:26 AM	A 25 point buy doesn't give you stats that "pure suck". A 25 point buy gives you stats that provide a standard level of difficulty. A 22 point buy is merely challenging. A 15 point buy is low powered, but even with a 15 point buy it's ENTIRELY possible to survive to higher levels. With a 28 point buy it becomes relatively easier and with a 32 point buy it can seem almost easy at times. A DM can design things so that a fifty point buy won't be survivable, but that isn't a DM's job. The DM's job is to provide challenges. If he can't do that for a standard array character, he can't do it any better for a numbers monster. Period. Isshia
Cantankerous 12-28-04, 06:26 AM	Maybe it's a personality thing, maybe there are people who just hugely over identify with their character and can not see themselves as anything but the weak sister in any group unless they're stronger than Paul Smith, while being more athletic than Kurt Vaugh and smarter than DaVinci all rolled into one. I don't get it, but then again, I don't need to. Hey, if you like playing Jimmy Olson to someone else's Superman, have a ball. Most people, which is what the game tailors itself to, don't. By the way, Onogroth, to explain this for you. "Someone wants to play a superhero? Sure, why not!" You made a reference to playing a super hero, the Marvel I was talking about was a super heroes role playing game made by the same people who made AD&D back then (mid eighties) and CoC, Call of Cthulhu (by Chaosium) was a brutally classy game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The two were polar opposite ends of the spectrum with the first game being unabashedly campy but fun and the other including a warning that the average life expectancy of the characters was short to non-existant. On the whole, most people involved in a game like the feeling of a leveled playing field. Few people go into a new game thinking "Gee, I just gotta play me side kick. That's soooooo much fun!" The whole genre is devolved from the heroic fantasy ideal. Can it be fun to play the regular guy in a group of iron men? Sure. With creativity anything can be fun. IT however is NOT what the game itself is designed around and thus it fits less well within the game. By the way, you don't have to be a "mature gamer" to enjoy that kind of character. There have been, at a guess, some few dozen players I've gamed with over the last quarter century who loved that type of character. It's more of a mindset thing usually. Sometimes it is born of a desire to strive harder, but usually it's an inferiority complex driven event that straightens itself out over time. What does usually take a level of maturity is to realize that you don't have to be Herr Ubermensch to be heroic. It's a cop out. It's the old "I'm too puny to make a difference." ploy. After all, there's a reason that the good people at WotC designed this game the way they did, with the "elite array" not being mega leaps above the standard. Isshia By the by MfU, the obsession began with 3rd edition, when it became neccesary to pay closer attention to the balance issue because the game was designed from a balance standpoint. The first editions of D&D weren't and it mattered far less. The mechanistic way the game itself is now centered promotes a whole new tye of game. Never in the early editions was there the tendancy to the TPK that now exists. The term was never even wide spread in the gamer community until 3rd edition. I
The Man from Uncle 12-28-04, 07:23 AM	Well i played 2 edition in the early 90's and (being young and foolish) tended to end up in rather ridiculusly overpowered scenarios. By the late 90's we'd grown up a bit and kept things sensible and played the game for what it was, a roleplay game. By the time 3rd edition came along those matters of power had kind of gone (i can't really remember what they were like). I do accept that 3rd edition is more numerically mutable (by the nature of it being easier to understand and predict) but i don't quite see how its more prone to becoming unbalanced (or rather i don't see why balance is now the hot topic becuase it was more of a problem in the past). Ad&d didn't offer rewards until stats got to 16,17 or 18 and once you got to about 19 in con you started regenerating. So a character that had good stats (more than 2 above 16 or so) was markedly better than one that did not. The distinction in power is not so apparent in 3rd edition. Even if 3rd edition was created to be easier to balance (for those groups that had players with a tendancy to powergame), why is it important that this aspect is exploited? A character with a 15 point build can still focus on an aspect of the game that a 30+ point builder can't cover. Skill points, feats and class abilities work as the equaliser here (again making 3rd ed better balanced). Having a gap of 10 points is not THAT BIG a deal. But by going with point buy you are forcing the characters to not just be roughly equal, but necessarily equal in foundation. Which rules out these other interesting roleplay chances. I am sure that few famous groups of adventurers were evenly balanced. The Fellowship as i recall, was made up of more than just Legolas, Gimlet, Boromir and Aragon. I think there were a couple of little guys in there too that were none great at fighting, but still had an important and equal role
Nom 12-28-04, 08:37 AM	I am sure that few famous groups of adventurers were evenly balanced. The Fellowship as i recall, was made up of more than just Legolas, Gimlet, Boromir and Aragon. I think there were a couple of little guys in there too that were none great at fighting, but still had an important and equal roleA good point. However, I would see the fellowship as a party of four high-level characters (probably about 15), following the guidance of an Epic Outsider NPC who deliberately down-played his abilities to avoid notice, and escorting a group of four low-level NPCs / followers / cohorts. Frodo is probably around 6th, while the others are likely 3rd-4th. While alternative models are possible, most of them involve players playing tag-along characters in someone else's story. This may be fun for some, but not for those wanting to "lead". In fact, there is a reason Tolkein separates Frodo and Sam at Rauros. The tale is about the rise and heroism of the little people, and they cannot come into their own while overshadowed by such great heroes as Aragorn and Gandalf. By splitting the story and the party, Tolkein allows the lesser characters to be the heroes while the mighty characters become bit players, distracting the Eye from Frodo and Sam. It is also interesting to note the adventures of Merry and Pippin. For the most part, they spend the great battles watching or cowering. They are an exploration of the small and unimportant finding their place in the schemes of the great, and, surprisingly, rising to greatness themselves. Again, they only achieve this when freed (in a story sense) from their mighty mentors and are forced to plot their own path.
The Shaman 12-28-04, 09:02 AM	You don't survive to roleplay if you can't rollplay. And if your stats are pure suck, chances are you're not gonna survive the lower levels. Not necessarily. A DM can design things so that a fifty point buy won't be survivable, but that isn't a DM's job. The DM's job is to provide challenges. If he can't do that for a standard array character, he can't do it any better for a numbers monster. Period. I don't really have a lot to add to this, other than the general advice that GMs should use care when creating encounters using CR - for example, a GM who incorporates terrain and tactics effectively can quickly overwhelm a party at a CR of the same level - and resist the temptation pump up the characters in order to introduce a "really cool" monster or BBEG too soon. Patience is a virtue in encounter planning - I strive to let the PCs rise to the occasion, rather than trying to force things too early. What does usually take a level of maturity is to realize that you don't have to be Herr Ubermensch to be heroic. I agree. The Fellowship as i recall, was made up of more than just Legolas, Gimlet, Boromir and Aragon. :rofl:
Loopy 12-28-04, 09:35 AM	30
The Master Weaver Is Warped 12-28-04, 10:22 AM	To me it sounds like accepting point buy is accepting that you and/or your group has short comings as roleplayers and as such needs a safety rule in play to stop things getting out of hand in terms of power. As I said, we play a high power game using a 36 point buy. Some of our group do have short comings as role players. They are 13 year old boys, for gods sake. The youngest player, with the 32 CHA sorcerer, (we're epic now) to the best of my knowledge, has never been kissed IRL. (Not that he would tell me if he had.) He has no frame of referance for the diplomacy skill, especially since his mother is a tackless, pushy broad, his birth father taught her the fine art of being a rude S.O.B., and his step-father has social anxiety disorder. Yet every once in a while, these boys pull a bit of role playing out of their hormone soaked brains that makes us old farts nod in appreciation (or blow drinks out of our noses.) This situation wouldn't change if we rolled stats, or picked them out of the air, used 28 points, or 280 points. The most childish players we have had in our group cheated, fudged rolls, grabed every bit of power they could get their hands on, couldn't role play their way out of a paper bag, and were both over 30 years of age with years of experience playing. This situation wouldn't change if we changed stat generation methods either. Likewise, playing a low power game rather than a high power game wouldn't change these situations. The DM controls power very well, as evidenced by the 14 round fight we are in the middle of and we haven't even seen the BBEG, never mind hit him. (Damn annoying really!) It is the players, not the stat generation system that makes the game fun or ruins it. It is the DM that controls the power level of the game, not the rule books and game system, and thereby makes the game fun or ruins it. Any roleplayer worth playing with should be able to play using any stat generation system, and make an interesting character using the stats generated by that system. It's not that hard, you just have to use your imagination. (Which I'm pretty sure The Man From Uncle is capable of doing ;)* .) *There is something disturbingly satisfying about winking at TMFU.
The Man from Uncle 12-28-04, 11:01 AM	Hey there Weaver, you got me late at night but i can't help but rise to the bait. I may just be able to roleplay my way out of a paper bag, but i enjoy it when the teams aren't a foregone conclusion in terms of balance and power. You are (close to) spot on though, 99% of it is the player, not the stat generation system. But sometimes the 1% is worth arguing about. As for the winking......well thats all very well and good, but does it last when I return the favour with a polite pat on the rear end. Bollox does it, i'm into sexist city. Go figure.
Krelios 12-28-04, 11:21 AM	Point buy is horrible. 1) It's unbalanced. Characters that really only need one ability score at a high level (read: wizards, sorcerers, etc.) are fine, but those that have multiple scores that need to be high suffer. 2) It's generic. If you have a 28 point buy, every fighter built on that will look identical, every wizard will look identical, etc. because there is an "optimal distribution." AVOID POINT BUY. Use rolling. It's random, it's better.
Ongorth 12-28-04, 11:21 AM	I know all about CoC and the Marvel RPG, it just didn't sound like your post in slightly related to mine. Maybe it was exaggeration for effect gone wrong, not sure, doesn't really matter. Sure it doesn't take maturity to play a weak character and it also doesn't take maturity to play someone who isn't superpowerful to be heroic. It is very easy and even inviting. Play an average police officer. Done. What I said and still, to this day, stand by is that I can't consider a group mature if they cannot play the game outisde of the balance model. The game system is extremely flexible and allows it quite well. This should not lead one to the faulty assumption that any group that throws in one random weak character is mature. This is not a neccessary and sufficient condition or anything. I seem to be one of the rare players who got into D&D after many years of free from roleplaying. Like, no character sheets or dice affairs. And it seems to show in everything I write. Makes me feel like a stereotype. Uncle: The balance obession has struck more than just Role Playing Games. Wargames have been hit with it even harder. No longer are people content to play about interesting battles, they want precisely fair battles instead that can be played four in a day so they can have tournements. As a 40k player, I can be the first to tell you this is extremely silly, as the very structure of the 40k rules makes such balance both undesirable and unattainable. TMWiW: Exactly. Like a said, good roleplayers just play. By the same token, any game worth playing in probably doesn't need a character generation system, but if its using one, the one chosen should not restrict the amount of fun the players get out of the game.
Zetakya 12-28-04, 11:26 AM	25 to 32, depending on number of players. With fewer players, each player has to cover more bases, especially skills-wise, and it's therefore best to put a few extra ability score bonuses in place to allow for the somewhat broader range of things they are going to need to be good at. I'd never go above 32. Not because players aren't heroes, but because too high an ability level screws with the challenge rating system. +20% chance to hit, or to succeed at a skill, applies all the way up the levels.
Cymraegmorgan 12-28-04, 01:44 PM	Point buy is horrible. 1) It's unbalanced. Characters that really only need one ability score at a high level (read: wizards, sorcerers, etc.) are fine, but those that have multiple scores that need to be high suffer. 2) It's generic. If you have a 28 point buy, every fighter built on that will look identical, every wizard will look identical, etc. because there is an "optimal distribution." AVOID POINT BUY. Use rolling. It's random, it's better. Darn tootin'! Ongorth is correct in his original supposition: point buy is not a tool for the mature. All of our group is now past 35, and we all look at point buy as a childish handicap, because of, we assume, the gross evidences of cheating at RPGA events. The Cleric player I mentioned in my previous post, even though he had super stats, was not the party leader, always helped others, and deferred to the Paladin constantly in character. The Player did not power game, even though his character was perfect for it. He had a character idea before the stats were rolled, and he kept to it. The Paladin sold her sword to help pay his Resurrection costs. She volunteered it when the Ranger had sold everything else "not Necessary" to come up with the cash. (Of course, all the Wizard player did during this time was cry and wail: the cleric PC is her PC's brother.) The ability scores, being random, help my players flesh out their PC concepts, but those scores do not rule the concept. We all went from 1st Edition to 3.5 at the same time, and rolling the abilities has always been the first interesting part of every campaign. Krelios is correct, pbs makes generic cookie cutter statted PCs. Where is the fun in that? Most of the older gamers I know stay away from RPGA events because the point buy system used by them says their members are too immature to be trusted with the responsibility of honesty.
satyrgrrrrl 12-28-04, 02:06 PM	Darn tootin'! Ongorth is correct in his original supposition: point buy is not a tool for the mature. All of our group is now past 35, and we all look at point buy as a childish handicap, because of, we assume, the gross evidences of cheating at RPGA events. The Cleric player I mentioned in my previous post, even though he had super stats, was not the party leader, always helped others, and deferred to the Paladin constantly in character. The Player did not power game, even though his character was perfect for it. He had a character idea before the stats were rolled, and he kept to it. The Paladin sold her sword to help pay his Resurrection costs. She volunteered it when the Ranger had sold everything else "not Necessary" to come up with the cash. (Of course, all the Wizard player did during this time was cry and wail: the cleric PC is her PC's brother.) The ability scores, being random, help my players flesh out their PC concepts, but those scores do not rule the concept. We all went from 1st Edition to 3.5 at the same time, and rolling the abilities has always been the first interesting part of every campaign. Krelios is correct, pbs makes generic cookie cutter statted PCs. Where is the fun in that? Most of the older gamers I know stay away from RPGA events because the point buy system used by them says their members are too immature to be trusted with the responsibility of honesty. Well, I don't agree with this sentiment. Maturity is not gleaned by what stat generation method you use. Mature and immature players use all kinds of methods. I prefer point buy. It is not because I am immature. I "grew up" with point buy in the form of White Wolf and WEG Star Wars. It's just what I prefer. Usually, people prefer whatever stat generation method they're used to. Habit and past experience is a large part of what people tend to prefer. I don't think people who roll are inherently less mature or worse gamers than I am, it's just a matter of personal preference. And I have Fighters in my group who use the default array (the 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15), and they have different stat set-ups. They are also widely different in how they're played. It isn't as bland as you might think. Power-hungry munchkins (read: immature players) prefer different methods of stat generation. For every example you have of one wanting the point buy, I have one wanting to roll. Immature gamers desire all kinds of stat generation, and I don't think they gravitate toward one or the other in terms of random/point buy. My biggest problem is when people attack other people's playing style based on the stat generation method. That's just silly. I don't think any less of you for wanting to roll, or to use 50 points, or to just make up numbers for your characters. Like I said, whatever works with your game is the best. As for the RPGA, I understand they just want an easy "standard" that everyone can get their heads around. I don't think it's the immaturity factor that you mention, but that it's simple to arbitrate for them. And the fact that you judge people who play it as immature by the stat generation used by the organization (over which they have no control) is very myopic.
RPGfish 12-28-04, 02:12 PM	Let them have 40 and LOTS of monsters will evil stat drains and level drains! But if you want, you can increase or decrease the amount of skill giving armor and replace it with extra points. There is still the rolling method, dont forget that!
Cantankerous 12-28-04, 04:14 PM	No one ever said, or intimated in any way, that it was not possible to play a under powered character in a powerful group. I will say that it is utter and total bollox to avere that doing so is a measure of maturity, but... to each their own. All of this comes back to the single point that love it or hate it, the game was designed around a balanced concept this time around and works best when used as designed. When troubles crop up in a closed end system and you are ignoring a primary aspect of that system it is hardly to be wondered at. Bogus issues of maturity aside (from both sides, yes) the "standard array" is just such a primary component, and song and dance it all you want, when you screw with a primary component it has consequences and those consequences trickle down to hundreds of sub-systems. Isshia
Stuntman 12-28-04, 04:17 PM	Whatever point buy value you give to the players will still not satisfy them totally. Personally, I don't like point buy. I like rolling with the standard 4d6 method. (I give the player the option of using the standard (25-point) point buy if they do not like the rolls.) I think it is more interesting if you cannot totally customise your character abilities any way you want. In my experience it makes for a more interesting game if you cannot do exactly what you want. It forces you to improvise and work outside of your comfort zone. Any success you have feels sweeter if you really had to be creative in order to succeed. One important issue is the ability of the player to make a character he wants to play. One player may have a concept of a character with no really high or really low abilities. Another player may have a concept of a character with one or two high abilities and a few low ones. If you roll randomly for the abilities, the players may have to modify their concepts. With the point buy, they do not have to since they can spread the points any way they want. If you do use the point buy method, you need to choose an appropriate power level (point buy value). The DM can pick and choose the abilities of the NPC's that the player will face and can adjust it depending on the abilities of the PC to keep the game balance. Even so, some players like having their abilities giving them more bonuses. There is this perception of power that the players feel even if the DM keeps things balanced by adjusting the NPC's. There does come to a point where the players feel that their character is hopeless. Someone who is used to using a more than a 32-point, point buy may feel that using only 25 points will result in hopeless characters. Hopefully, players will be able to get past this initial reaction and enjoy the game.
The Master Weaver Is Warped 12-28-04, 04:42 PM	As for the winking......well thats all very well and good, but does it last when I return the favour with a polite pat on the rear end. Bollox does it, i'm into sexist city. Go figure.Hense the 'disturbingly satisfying'.
Suicidal Cavalry Attack 12-28-04, 06:05 PM	Ongorth is correct in his original supposition: point buy is not a tool for the mature. All of our group is now past 35, and we all look at point buy as a childish handicap, because of, we assume, the gross evidences of cheating at RPGA events. Krelios is correct, pbs makes generic cookie cutter statted PCs. Where is the fun in that? Most of the older gamers I know stay away from RPGA events because the point buy system used by them says their members are too immature to be trusted with the responsibility of honesty. I roll 3d6. I take what I get, I have fun. Statistically speaking, you really limit yourself with the point buying system. No chance for a "good" character, or a "bad" character. Like Cym and Krel said, where is the fun. One might as well play Diablo for all of the thought that goes into the minmaxing a point character. My current Character, a Druid, started with: STR10 DEX9 CON10 INT8 WIS12 CHA9 Not the best PC I've ever had, but its what I rolled, so I am working with it, and having fun.
Dragonsbane1313 12-28-04, 06:15 PM	I dont usually use point buy but the one time I did I used 35. It seems a bit much but the players werent overpowered at all. I personally think that 28 is too little.
Darkwind 12-28-04, 07:02 PM	[QUOTE=Nom]This is the worst of both worlds. Rather than have a calibrated scale where everyone is equal, or give everyone a set of uncalibrated values, lets take a calibrated scale and explicitly give people different point values. This is 'we must have randomness' taken to its logical, flawed extreme.[QUOTE] What is the point in everyone having the same starting value. There are so many ways to enhance ability scores in the game, you aren't likely to be "calibrated" for more than two levels, so what is the harm in 1-7 points starting variance just for the sake of flavor! It takes alot more than 7 points to seperate zero or hero. I do admit that after thinking about it I would use 25 + 2d4 though, making it a 6 point spread. How much difference is 6 points going to really make........13,13,13,14,14,14, or 12,12,12,13,13,13. You are slamming randomness, but D&D is built upon randomness. Just my thoughts though, enjoy your' own opinion. By the way the 25+xDx was only a suggestion. For the record my gaming group prefers rolling stats, so that is what I let them do.
Nom 12-28-04, 08:59 PM	1) It's unbalanced. Characters that really only need one ability score at a high level (read: wizards, sorcerers, etc.) are fine, but those that have multiple scores that need to be high suffer.Not really. It's significantly more efficient to have a higher average than a single high score. Of course, if you think that a character needs multiple "excellent" scores (15+) rather than simple multiple "good" scores (12-14) then that's a problem of user expectation rather than the system. As a player, I prefer point buy mechanics because I get to choose what distribution I want. 18 and mediocre is great for a fighter or wizard, but a problem if you wanted a monk or paladin. Likewise, rolling four 14s and a couple of medium rolls is good for a monk or paladin, but doesn't fit so well for a primary spellcaster. Some people appreciate the lack of control. I don't. As a DM, I prefer point buy because I know before the game begins the power level of the characters and that the characters are approximately equivalent. I also prefer to start from an "everybody is approximately equal" and let the PCs build it from there, rather than start out with imbalances. I do accept that the game has a lot of randomness anyway. However, most in-game randomness has repeated sampling mechanisms and ways of fudging circumstances to reduce the effect. Imbalances at creation last the life of the character, which may be 2-3 years real-time. Perhaps its the gamer in me speaking. I'd rather see how people grow their characters from an approximately equal starting point, rather than have bias built in before the game even begins. Others' may feel differently. 2) It's generic. If you have a 28 point buy, every fighter built on that will look identical, every wizard will look identical, etc. because there is an "optimal distribution."I disagree. The first point-buy choice is how much breadth you are prepared to sacrifice for focus. I prefer breadth, so will very rarely buy a stat above 14. Others like to focus, and thus will sacrifice to gain a 16 or even an 18. Likewise, I prefer personable characters, so will always try to boost Cha. Others don't consider this as important. For me, point-buy satisfies my needs for "balance" and "control", while giving me the flexibility to craft the character how I see fit. Of course, the classic mistake is to give too many points. As odd as it sounds, increasing the amount of points available actually decreases customisation. With more points, you can be good at everything (or everything that matters to you). With fewer points, deciding to emphasise one score applies a real penalty, which makes for more interesting decisions. AVOID POINT BUY. Use rolling. It's random, it's better.Which displays your bias right there. If you like randomness, rolling is obviously better. If you like control and balance, point buy is better. If you like rolling because you can keep rolling until you get a "good" set of scores, then admit that you don't really like randomness and give yourself an over-powered point buy instead.
clarkvalentine 12-28-04, 10:19 PM	To me it sounds like accepting point buy is accepting that you and/or your group has short comings as roleplayers and as such needs a safety rule in play to stop things getting out of hand in terms of power. Our group prefers point-buy. We don't make a lot of characters, and whenever we do, we usually like to try our hand at a crtain rules mechanic that's caught our eye, or a class/race combo that we've never tried before. Point-buy is the way to guarantee that in our limited gaming time we get a chance to play the game we want to play. For instance, I'd like to play a melee specialist cleric in my next D&D game. I'd strongly prefer point-buy so that I can create that, instead of a random set of stats that might not let me play that sort of character at all. Maturity has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
clarkvalentine 12-28-04, 10:21 PM	every wizard will look identical... Simply untrue. Not everyone twinks out. I built a wizard with point-buy whose charisma was higher than his intelligence. Why? Because I wanted to play a charmer, the sort of guy everyone likes, the sort who has people listen when he speaks. He's a diplomat who happens to be a diviner. He talks his way out of more scrapes than he fireballs his way out of, and I love it. Not everyone uses point-buy to get the 18 in the primary stat.
clarkvalentine 12-28-04, 10:22 PM	No chance for a "good" character, or a "bad" character. Like Cym and Krel said, where is the fun. The fun for some folks is in playing the PC you want to play, not the ones the dice hand you. Some folks prefer the uncertainty. Some folks don't. I don't.
Dragonspirit 12-28-04, 11:27 PM	I'd personally go with 28, or allow a premade array. It allows for nice, solid stats without having every stat either be a bonus or a dump.
The Man from Uncle 12-29-04, 01:18 AM	Nom and clarkvalentine, rolling dice rarely has the potential of stopping someone play the character they want, it simply means you have to play that character with a different power level than your expectation. As Stuntman quite rightly put there is some value from not being able to play just the simple and obvious builds that point buy provides. I am not saying that point buy ONLY provides cookie cutter character builds, but i would say it lends itself to that lack of originality a lot more than rolling dice does. Nom, your closing sentances really don't do your preferance much service. Most criticisms about point buy are that it is boring and lacks excitment. What you conclusion says, in light of that, is 'Those who enjoy excitement should choose dice rolling and those who prefer dullness (control and balance is how you phrase it) should choose point buy'. Well dice-rollers think that you should liven up a bit not just continue with the dull choice. The way you compare how some point buy players distribute stats and how giving too many points is the real mistake, sounds like comparing how people iron their underware and whether they use too much fabric softener.
Nom 12-29-04, 04:34 AM	Uncle, may I congratulate you. Few people have sufficient commitment to the art to say "I'd would gladly roll a weak character and play it, even if the next guy was better in every department.". I, for one, don't. I'd rather give everyone the same sized ball of clay and see what they make of it, as I cant help feeling some of the fun has gone out if some people are given bigger - or better quality - clay than others. I admit to being naturally conservative. I'm not much of a gambler. I evaluate benefits in terms of net effect than gross effect. As such, I do have an interest in the mechanical effect of ability scores, and would rather not start the game with a crap-shoot. In contrast, most people who advocate rolling are natural gamblers, and do so in the hope that they will somehow "beat the system" and get better than average scores. It is refreshing to meet someone who gladly play a character with low rolled scores, just for the organic pleasure of it. I suppose it would add to the sense of achievement, also. That said, I'm coming to realise that to play characters with scores greater than 25 point buy is to gain an unearned advantage, and that the game will be more of a challenge - and thus success more rewarding - with "standard" scores. It's always more fun to "win" when you know you don't have a handicap in your favour.
Roxlimn 12-29-04, 05:21 AM	I do not believe that the standard point buy produces characters of the same caliber, on the average as the standard dice rolling system as stated in the PHB. The reason for this is quite obvious. Rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest often nets you something in the neighboringhood of a 28 point buy, with some chance to roll spectacularly and some chance to roll poorly. While the chance to roll spectacularly isn't more than the chance to roll poorly, being able to reroll any ability spread with a combined ability modifier of 0 or less or with no stat higher than 13 is a huge boon. This increases your chances of getting a 28 point buy or better character significantly. Quite factually, you only ever get a chance to play a character less powerful than a 28 point buy if you roll somewhere between that and a +0 ability mod total or 13 highest stat character, which is really still quite a decent character. The absolute worst character you can possibly get in this scheme is a character with a 14 in one stat with all 10s and 11s and a single stat no lower than a 9. That's still a playable character. With the great chance you can net yourself a really nice character with stats wherever you want them, I have found that no player in my games ever opts for 25 point buy where he can roll the standard PHB way. Thus, I have instituted this rule: The player chooses which method to use: 28 point buy or standard PHB die rolls. They create an ability pool to use using the method chosen and distribute the scores as they wish. This ability pool is the pool they will use for the duration of the campaign. If their current PC should meet an untimely end, any new PC they generate will use the same ability pool (and start off at a lower level). This way, players are encouraged to keep the characters they generate and make the most of them.
Cantankerous 12-29-04, 05:58 AM	Nom and clarkvalentine, rolling dice rarely has the potential of stopping someone play the character they want, it simply means you have to play that character with a different power level than your expectation. As Stuntman quite rightly put there is some value from not being able to play just the simple and obvious builds that point buy provides. I am not saying that point buy ONLY provides cookie cutter character builds, but i would say it lends itself to that lack of originality a lot more than rolling dice does. Nom, your closing sentances really don't do your preferance much service. Most criticisms about point buy are that it is boring and lacks excitment. What you conclusion says, in light of that, is 'Those who enjoy excitement should choose dice rolling and those who prefer dullness (control and balance is how you phrase it) should choose point buy'. Well dice-rollers think that you should liven up a bit not just continue with the dull choice. The way you compare how some point buy players distribute stats and how giving too many points is the real mistake, sounds like comparing how people iron their underware and whether they use too much fabric softener. Oh come on. Point Buy limits inventiveness and originality? You've got to be kidding. If anything the Point Buys system greatly promotes originality and inventiveness. You don't start with the random roll of uberness in one stat and the roll of utter garbage in the other that limit your ability to protray ANY character type. That is a randomness problem. Before the campaign let's say that I've got a hankering to play a character who's been made mean by the mean streets; an undersized boy who has had to survive on his wits and his fleetness of foot and who's always wanted to be the rich and respected man who passes by in the gilded carriage, a diplomat and scholar from far away Arthain. The boys mother is a "tavern girl" who earns a meagre living pleasing sailors and for whom the boy is an inconvience, not a son. Suddenly, as the boy nears puberty, he discovers that he can sometimes, especially in times of stress, make things happen with his desire alone (nasceant Sorcerery ability) and if he concentrates and keeps at it, he can repeat the process and shape it so that he can call on it any time he needs it. Over the next few years he pours himself into his desires. Every waking moment is spent learning to control this new power, or simply feeding himself and seeing to the most basic things. Then mother doesn't come home one morning. It's a common enough thing with prostitutes in a port town. The job is one filled with perils after all. The boy is half beside himself. The local temple which has sometimes given he and his mother food in lean times and has given the boy the barest modicum of an education has also taught him that he must love and respect his parents no matter what. Now she's gone and their last words were angry, a quarrel and the boys training has taught him that when you do bad things, it always comes back to you (a small lawful good faith has sprung up in the city's ghettos, proseltyzing with food and preaching in equal measures), so this MUST be his bad karma coming home to him. It's HIS fault that she's gone. And so on... See the point here? I don't have the random rolls dicrtating what I have as strengths and weaknessess. I have to do it all on my own. With the Point Buy I can do this absolutely. Let's see though what i get with the random method. I just went into my bookmarks and let the Irony Games Dice Server do a single random 4d6 roll spread for me, these were the results: You requested that 6 rolls of 4 6-sided dice be rolled. Roll them bones ... your dice are Roll 1: 6, [2], 2, 5 = 13. Roll 2: 6, 6, [1], 5 = 17. Roll 3: 6, 6, 5, [1] = 17. Roll 4: [4], 6, 5, 5 = 16. Roll 5: 6, [1], 5, 6 = 17. Roll 6: 6, 3, [2], 3 = 12. Well damn. So much for the little undersized lad who could. It's a shame. HE sounded interesting. I did NOT fudge this in the least. The above was what was rolled with a single press of the "roll them bones" button. You know, if we go with the old assign them in order ideal that is the real corner stone of the random method, he's going to be the most bizzare Sorcerer out there. His lowest stat would be Charisma and his strength, while it's the second lowest stat, puts him just shy of the average Gnoll strength wise. Bye, bye, little Sorcerer lad. The BIG point is though that with rolls like this the interesting lad who was evolving along, who had a back life and a reason and rationalization for how he become what he was becoming is gone, swept away by the random method. This bozo, even if his lowest stat is put into strength, is never going to be the little undersized boy I wanted to protray. He's strong, compared to the average man. Heck according to the old 3.0 PHB he's as strong as the average half orc. THAT is NOT what I was going for. My creativity has been thus curtailed by the random method. Those were pretty extreme rolls, but they are the PERFECT illustration of why I've come to dispise the random character generation method more and more. IT is the real killer of creativity, not a point buy method. Isshia
happycows 12-29-04, 09:23 AM	Roll 4d6 and make two columns. Than if you like to keep one of those columns as your actual stats you keep one or reroll two more columns. Than if you like one stat you keep it or reroll the last two columns you get to choose from. In these final two columns you must keep one. It works like this: 3 8 18 3 10 12 "aww that sucks" 10 8 12 16 13 8 "aww this sucks too, I'll scrap these both." 3 3 "screw this column already" 18 3 3 "omg I'm so unlucky today... I'll go for my final column." 12 10 16 14 14 14 "okay that's not too bad... my luck has changed a little... no more damn threes" 18 14 14 13 12 16 "wow this kicks butt. I'll keep these." When you run a high powered campaign. I recommend this system. If you're a super evil dm that throws CR 10 stuff at lvl 8 guys all the time... I recommend this system. In other words if you're dm is like mine... you better get this system unless you really like making 40 new characters throughout one campaign. I mean you guys might not like high stat characters but I do. 1) makes the game progress so much faster. 2) we don't always have to fight one battle than run back to town like cowards 3) we don't have to be like oh crap looks like there's only one way to do this mission and since the dm wants us to do it... we better go do it... NO NO no it allows for more free roaming. In otherwords high powered stats lets a party do more free roaming than they otherwise would be able to. This means that if the rogues need to go assassinate someone while the paladin of our party is resting... they can go do that and not be like OMG WE'RE ALL DOOMED. no no no it won't be that bad... they have a chance to escape or assassinate or die instead of just a chance to die. Otherwise the rogues would have to either level up, get magical ****, drink potions, or some other crap like get a good wand before even thinking about scoping the place out and planning their kill.
Darkwind 12-29-04, 12:45 PM	Well damn. So much for the little undersized lad who could. It's a shame. HE sounded interesting. I did NOT fudge this in the least. The above was what was rolled with a single press of the "roll them bones" button. You know, if we go with the old assign them in order ideal that is the real corner stone of the random method, he's going to be the most bizzare Sorcerer out there. His lowest stat would be Charisma and his strength, while it's the second lowest stat, puts him just shy of the average Gnoll strength wise. Bye, bye, little Sorcerer lad. The BIG point is though that with rolls like this the interesting lad who was evolving along, who had a back life and a reason and rationalization for how he become what he was becoming is gone, swept away by the random method. This bozo, even if his lowest stat is put into strength, is never going to be the little undersized boy I wanted to protray. He's strong, compared to the average man. Heck according to the old 3.0 PHB he's as strong as the average half orc. THAT is NOT what I was going for. My creativity has been thus curtailed by the random method. Those were pretty extreme rolls, but they are the PERFECT illustration of why I've come to dispise the random character generation method more and more. IT is the real killer of creativity, not a point buy method. Isshia What you totally overlooked was that in page 169 of the DMs guide it clearly details the rules of Floating reroll which lets you roll 4d6 drop the lowest and assign the scores as desired which gives your' demo sorceror an excellent charisma, also in this method you get to reroll one lowest die on one of the 4d6 rolls. This system makes for a very customizable character. You could be anything with those scores you rolled. There is not a 4d6 assign them in order in the DMs guide.
Stuntman 12-29-04, 01:31 PM	With a point buy system, I can know I can play the character I want to play. I do not believe that it results in a lack of originality. I could have a very creative and original character concept and the point buy system allows me to allocate the stats appropriately to best fit my character concept. If I play in multiple campaigns, I could very easily use the exact same character in each of these campaigns. Point buy does lend itself to cookie cutter characters. With higher point buys, you can create characters with little or no ability penalties. It can lead to predictable characters that some DM's like to discourage. With a dice rolling system, it can force players to play outside of their comfort zone. The stats that I rolled may not be appropriate for the character concept I had in mind, so I'm force to adjust. Also, the stats that I rolled may allow me to play something different that I didn't have in mind. If I play in multiple campaigns, it is more likely I'll be playing something different in each campaign. The randomness is a turn off to some for a variety of reasons. For instance, you may want to play a Mystic Theurge, but want to have at least a 15 in one ability and 16 in another. With dice rolling, the chances of this happening is not in your favour. However, with point buy, you can guarantee you will get two high stats (although your other stats may not be very good). It is a personal preference which system you like. Some people like point buy because it is more deterministic. It is comforting to know you can play what you want. Some people like the randomness and unpredictability of dice rolling. I think it is great that 3E allows for both systems. Both systems can also adjust the power level. You can easily adjust the power level with point buy by adding the amount of points players get to spend. With die rolling, you can do the same by rerolling 1's, using 5d6 instead of 4d6, although you are not guaranteed that you will get higher scores. One thing of note is that the standard dice rolling method generates scores roughly equivalent to a 28 or 29-point, point buy. Yet, the standard point buy is 25 points. I get the impression that the game designers feel that being able to customise your character is worth 3 or 4 points of the point buy system. I tend to agree that the standard should be the random system and if you want a deterministic system, it costs you something. (It is interesting that in 3.0 if you want predictable hit points, the cost was 1/2 hit points per level. In 3.5 they changed it so that you get average hit points. I use the 3.0 method if my player wants his hit points to be deterministic, but that's another topic.)
astute1 12-29-04, 02:03 PM	So, here's where things stand: Rolling Stats Pro - More Variability, Everyone Doesn't look the same, people occasionally have glaring weaknesses, more "realistic" Con - Variance within party (noone wants to be the fighter whose high stat is a 15 when the fighter who rolled 3 18's is standing next to you) Point Buy Pro - More Balanced, every character has the same attribute potential Con - noone has glaring weaknesses, get a "cookie cutter" party Traditionally, I've used 4d6-drop lowest for characters. However, for my next campaign I've settled on 30 point buy. I'm sick of seeing people who roll poorly on character gen get wasted in fights while people who roll high numbers sail through the campaign. My players have expressed some concerns (especially those that typically roll well), but overall seem to support the idea. highly doubt anyone posting on these forums has a 15 in anything, despite the "stat yourself" threads that were so common when 3.0 came out. Pride aside, I'd be willing to be we all have straight 10's. Yeah, I'm gonna pick up the gauntlet on this one. I'm in my third year of being a PhD student in Biology. The other players in my group are, respectivly, a programmer/biologist with a MS, a 1st year PhD student in chemistry, a Master's student in hydrology, and a grad of psychology. I'm guessing that all of us have intelligence scores above 16. If anything, people who play D&D tend to be a cut smarter than the average people, because we have an interest in books and storytelling.
satyrgrrrrl 12-29-04, 02:21 PM	Yeah, I'm gonna pick up the gauntlet on this one. I'm in my third year of being a PhD student in Biology. The other players in my group are, respectivly, a programmer/biologist with a MS, a 1st year PhD student in chemistry, a Master's student in hydrology, and a grad of psychology. I'm guessing that all of us have intelligence scores above 16. If anything, people who play D&D tend to be a cut smarter than the average people, because we have an interest in books and storytelling. There's no gauntlet here. I'm sorry you took offence to the idea that you might be average. I've found that it's very common for people on these boards to inflate thier Int scores. Most people think they're a lot smarter than they are. Also, education and intelligence are two different things. But I'm not getting in a p***ing match over ability scores in this thread (there's enough of it on the floor in this thread to flood a small country). You can think your ability scores are whatever you like, and just believe me wrong. That's cool. :) And, I'd just like to point out that no one on this thread is convincing anyone of anything anymore. Now, as I predicted, people are just snipping back and forth at each other about their preferred method. You're not a better or worse gamer for preferring the rolling. The game can go on and flourish with the results of any rolling method. You're not a better or worse gamer for preferring the point buy. The game can go on and flourish with the results of any point buy. Whatever stat generation method makes the group happy is the best one. Now, please, somebody be the mature gamer we all claim to be and let this thread DIE!! :angel:
olshanski_home 12-29-04, 03:04 PM	I like the following: 30 point buy if you use only the DMG and PHB for creating your character... any feats or classes from outside sources are forbidden. 25 point buy if you use the DMG, PHB, Savage Species, and any Complete series of books (with all of the feats and classes therin). This tends to balance out the fact that with a lot of the complete series books you can mix and match some feats and classes to get slightly overpowered but one-trick type characters.
Twisted Puppy 12-29-04, 03:15 PM	Yeah, I'm gonna pick up the gauntlet on this one. I'm in my third year of being a PhD student in Biology. The other players in my group are, respectivly, a programmer/biologist with a MS, a 1st year PhD student in chemistry, a Master's student in hydrology, and a grad of psychology. I'm guessing that all of us have intelligence scores above 16. If anything, people who play D&D tend to be a cut smarter than the average people, because we have an interest in books and storytelling. *takes the gauntlet and buries it in a pile of cow dung where it belongs* Anyone who has attended a university, or for that matter held a job, knows that level of education is not necessarily proportionate to one's intelligence, social skills, or especially common sense. Astute1, please don't take this personally - I have never met you or your friends, I have no idea what you're all like. From what I've read on the boards, you seem like you'd be a lot of fun to game with. :rant: Still, we have a guy where I work that holds a PhD in Chemistry and has helped engineer a product that won the Green Chemistry Award - and I wouldn't trust him to safely handle a cookie cutter. Nor could he understand why it is cheaper to ship a 300 pound item on a truck a week before it has to be at a destination rather than to wait until the day before it has to be there and ship it via next day air (land freight cost $45, the air charge ended up at around $3000). I've met people with MBAs that couldn't successfully plan or manage a wet dream. :rant: Okay, I'm sorry about the ranting. Couldn't help myself. That was sort of like dangling an unemployed manager in front of George Steinbrenner. To the topic of the thread: As the DM, I have to base the campaign's power level on what the players would enjoy. How do I know what they'd like? I ASK them. IMC, the players expressed a desire for higher powered characters, so that's what they got. 36 point buy was agreeable to everyone. Of course, major opponents are based on 36 points as well. Roleplaying ability is not, IMX, inversely proportional to the ability scores of a character. I'm fortunate to have some great roleplayers IMC, and they set a good example for others who have not been playing as long. Of my current players, three had never played D&D prior to joining the campaign, and one had not played in quite some time. The campaign has been running for three and a half years, and we have some remarkably well developed character personalities.
Palin the Wizard 12-29-04, 04:09 PM	Originally posted by Twisted Puppy Roleplaying ability is not, IMX, inversely proportional to the ability scores of a character. [...] The campaign has been running for three and a half years, and we have some remarkably well developed character personalities. :clap: That's exactly what I have been trying to say. Well said! :)
ManinDarkness 12-29-04, 05:34 PM	In a related theme, I like that my PC's roll their abilities. I strongly dislike computer rolled abilities. Remember the dice roller in D&D site? It strongly likes 6's. I don't know why, but it failed all random sample tests. Sometimes people say that they don't like rolling abilities because of the high results they get (with crappy results inbetween). I blame computers.
Cantankerous 12-29-04, 05:54 PM	What you totally overlooked was that in page 169 of the DMs guide it clearly details the rules of Floating reroll which lets you roll 4d6 drop the lowest and assign the scores as desired which gives your' demo sorceror an excellent charisma, also in this method you get to reroll one lowest die on one of the 4d6 rolls. This system makes for a very customizable character. You could be anything with those scores you rolled. There is not a 4d6 assign them in order in the DMs guide. But what he can not be is the character concept that was desired. His stats simply do not fit and can not be taiolred to fit no matter what. His lowest stat is five to six points higher than was envisioned. His second lowest stat was three points higher than was envisioned. Three of his stats were higher than the single highest stat was envisioned. The guy is a stat monster. He's a 58 Point Buy abortion of a character that would be about as much fun to play as watching paint dry in a game based on a 25 point buy universe. Now, I could simply chop off fourteen or so points of stats that were rolled, but then that isn't using the rolled stats and opens the doors to others using the same arguement in a differing tone. The above is exactly the reason I do vehemently dislike the idea of the old 4d6 drop the lowest arrange as desired (which by the way, has been the one of the standard methods since 1st edition AD&D) in this newest incarnation of the game. It's totally destabilizing in the new system, far more so than it ever was in AD&D in either of it's incarnations. I've seen statistical studies that show that 12.35 is the mean average character stat by the method mentioned, not bad number, until you realize that it includes, in easy range of probability, the equivalent of a 13 Point Buy character (stats lower than the average commoner in the new D&D universe) in the same ADVENTURING party with the 58 Point Buy monster we have above. Without the self serving BS about how enobling playing such a character would be, stripping away the hype about how it doesn't effect the role playing possibilities (which it really doesn't in a purely role playing sense, but this is NOT a purely role playing game), the two characters do not belong together in the same adventuring party. They are not equals, and while life isn't about equality, this game is not life. Exactly how many people would HONESTLY prefer to play Pippin over playing Aragorn? And they would be ALOT closer stat wise than the 13 and 58 Point Buy characters would be. Isshia
Cantankerous 12-29-04, 06:01 PM	In a related theme, I like that my PC's roll their abilities. I strongly dislike computer rolled abilities. Remember the dice roller in D&D site? It strongly likes 6's. I don't know why, but it failed all random sample tests. Sometimes people say that they don't like rolling abilities because of the high results they get (with crappy results inbetween). I blame computers. Give the online dice roller at Irony Games a try. It has passed the random sampling tests from two differing OTHER sites that it was tested against and has on site articles about how to do exactly that and what you can interpret from the results. In one bored night of testing I ran it versus my own dice in hand next to the computer. In a hundred and twenty six string roll off I noted that it's variation was closer to the ideal than my own dice were. I then dug out an old Dragon Magizine article "Are thy die ill wrought?" and tested THEM. Sure enough, in a 256 string set my own old favored set of die had developed a bias. Isshia
Shadowbane 12-29-04, 06:32 PM	I will go on the record and state that 3.5 was not designed for 25 point at all. The standard is roll 4d6 drop lowest and arrange as desired. The 25 point is an alternative. A 28 point buy is for tougher campaigns. If your campaign isnt tough then your doing something wrong unless you have alot of players that like to sit in taverns and drink wine and eat cheese ( which is very possible ). 32 point buy is for high powered campaigns which is what most of us like to play I think. I want to be seriously challenged at every turn. I hate easy battles. I use 4d6 (reroll ones) drop lowest and arrange as desired. It takes a little more work on my part as DM, but I can handle it. A PC will never be powerful enough not be challenged in my game.
Cantankerous 12-29-04, 09:07 PM	I will go on the record and state that 3.5 was not designed for 25 point at all. The standard is roll 4d6 drop lowest and arrange as desired. The 25 point is an alternative. A 28 point buy is for tougher campaigns. If your campaign isnt tough then your doing something wrong unless you have alot of players that like to sit in taverns and drink wine and eat cheese ( which is very possible ). 32 point buy is for high powered campaigns which is what most of us like to play I think. I want to be seriously challenged at every turn. I hate easy battles. I use 4d6 (reroll ones) drop lowest and arrange as desired. It takes a little more work on my part as DM, but I can handle it. A PC will never be powerful enough not be challenged in my game. No no. That 28 isn't for "tougher campaigns". It's for "tougher PCs". Likewise, the 32 Point Buy isn't for High Powered campaigns, but for high powered PCs. You want a challenge= Take a 25 Point Buy character from to tenth or so level with a DM that does everything by the book. THAT's a challenge. Doing the same with a 28 Point Buy character is less of a challenge, when the ideal from the DMG for balancing encounters is considered. With 32 Point Buy characters I consider them to be one full level higher than they are when using the straight DMG method of balancing encounters. You almost have to if you have a talented group, otherwise they cake walk it. Isshia
Palin the Wizard 12-29-04, 09:49 PM	Stats have NOTHING to do with roleplaying. A concept is only rarely limited by stats (such as Cantankerous' example with the weak, undersized boy who doesn't have a lower stat than 12). In those cases, you talk with the DM, or you compromise. It's not difficult. Concepts are the only aspect of roleplaying that stats can have even the slightest impact on.
Ongorth 12-29-04, 10:17 PM	CKerous: Shockingly, yes, some people like playing Pippin. ________________________________________ ___________________________ Like I said, my group just picks stats. Some people choose to roll anyway so they can get a fresh new idea. This completely solves your "stats interfere with the concept" problem. It ensures everyone has the option of playing the exact type of character they want, whether they enjoy heros with little fault and many strengths or more average people, people with tragic flaws or well rounded ones. In fact, I can't think of a single flaw of just picking stats. Unless of course you feel the game benefits from doggedly sticking to the balance model. I think the balance model is a severe limitation and completely optional. The rules work just fine without it. The monsters work just fine without it. Magic items work just fine without it. All it takes is some thought on the part of the players. The entire idea that you can play a campaign from 1-10 "by the book" just baffles me. The book doesn't know what the group wants out of the game. That is why I find point buy immature. It seems based off of the fact that the players do not know what they want out of the game yet. They are adapting their enjoyment to the game's needs, not adapting the game to their needs. Granted, I suppose it is entirely possible that people play D&D play it FOR the balance model. However, I've never heard anyone express their love of the game in those terms.
clarkvalentine 12-29-04, 10:54 PM	Like I said, my group just picks stats. This method works almost shockingly well, in my admittedly limited experience.
clarkvalentine 12-29-04, 11:02 PM	That is why I find point buy immature. It seems based off of the fact that the players do not know what they want out of the game yet. Quite the opposite - I think it's often based on the players knowing exactly what they want in a PC at game start. As has been stated, it's very useful for people who like to have an idea of what stats they'll be playing with before they go into chargen. Every player in my current group has started every campaign we've played together with a character concept (including pawer level) ready to go before we started generation. Random stat generation is leaving too much up to a few early rolls of the dice for my comfort. For this reason I prefer point-buy. I like to leave some of what happens to my PCs to chance, but I don't like leaving who my PC IS to chance. I invest too much into the character to play one I don't like.
Ongorth 12-29-04, 11:29 PM	Clark: I was talking from a broader sense of "want out of the game" not "want out of my character", but even in this simplification, doesn't picking stats do it jsut plain better? Never will you be in the situation again where you have points you don't know what to do with or short again! What I meant by "want out of the game" was knowing exactly what creates enjoyment for the group. One of the best things about roleplaying is that it is a group activity and finding and customizing your game to your needs is an amazing process. Even relatively unimportant things (How I show my biases) like ability score generation can be designed to fit your scheme of the ideal game. Might point buy be ideal for some peoples game? Sure. Might some people be accepting it because they haven't thought about it very much and blindly assume the balance model is something they want in there game? Sure. In games I've seen and played in, point buy is sort of a cop out. "Well, we can't think of a better system, so lets just stick with something that works decently." In very mature groups, the players generally know exactly what they want or at least where they want to explore. They've long since decided what they want and don't want out of there games and have discovered what mechanics do and don't help them. I've never seen such a group decide, "Hey, let's force everyone into the same arbitrary power level. That'll make a interesting game like we've never played before." But, as I have admitted twice before, I'm sure its possible some groups out there might really, really like the balance model as it is and feel point buy is the best way to make characters in a game which uses it. Certainly this isn't a thread as to why the balance model doesn't work as written, why point buy is ineffective in supporting the balance model or the limitations of the balance model and I have carefully avoided making it such.
clarkvalentine 12-29-04, 11:34 PM	... but even in this simplification, doesn't picking stats do it jsut plain better? Very possibly, and I'll be very tempted to try that method next time I start a new D&D campaign. I've only played in a game using this method once, and like I said it worked surprisingly well.
Cantankerous 12-30-04, 12:04 AM	Or possibly you keep avering that Point Buy is immature out of a sense of personal inadequecy to deal with the situation instead of blanket condeming it? While I've said that I am coming to dispise the purely random method as a limiting factor on what can be done with the character and characterization, and others have decried it for those and other reasons, yet you are the only one still clinging to the "it's immature" presumably "because I do it differently" ploy. How revelatory. I've used the 4d6, drop and assign method for more than eighty percent of the games I've run over the years. It was the method we started with even before 1st edition came out and suggested it, but... I've always disliked the discrepancies it has created in nearly every game from the start on through. We too often did the assign whatever you want method, but there was even then often too great sway, one character to the next. AD&D and other games of the genre are not ever pure role playing vehicles. They are incredibly ill suited to pure RP. They are combined tactical/RP venues and ignoring one side because it's "less cool" makes about as much sense as ignoring the brakes on a race car. It's just plain silly. Too, the original post in this thread, and the entitlement of the thread itself, goes far afield from this solopsistic tirade about the immaturity of one of the standard methods the designers of the game fashioned this edition around. Is it normal for you to decry anything that you generally disagree with as immature? Isshia
Ongorth 12-30-04, 03:11 AM	CTerous: Actually, I had just taken someone elses position and ran with it. Until I read this thread, I had never thought of point buy as immature, I just didn't have much of a use for it. The information in this thread helped me reach that decision as it illuminated a very important facet of group dynamics that I had previously not thought about. Maturity has a specific meaning which I am using it for, not as some random insult. You have misread me somewhere, as I did not call the default system immature. With no doubt several million play hours over four years, that would make little sense. Though it has many faults, it is certainly not immature. I claimed that players who use it probably hadn't matured to the level where they either understand what they want out of the game or perhaps mre accurately because the group has not matured to the level where everyone understands and is comfortable with the goals of everyone else. Shockingly, I play in two groups that use a point buy, despite my distaste for it. Know why? These are online roleplaying groups where large portions of the players don't know each other. As the groups are not mature, point buy serves as a sort of neutral ground that everyone is familiar with. As the groups and players start getting to know each other, the goals of the players become more transport and the comfort level of the game increases, the common ground shifts away from "those things we all know" to those that are unique to the group. I have little doubt that if I am still playing with the same players three years from now (which is entirely possible, as, in spite of the fact I am the Worst Player Ever, they actually enjoy playing with me) were we to start a new campaign the whole idea of a point buy would seem silly, as the group would have matured past the discomfort and balance simply isn't an important factor anymore. As I've conceeded four times now, I guess it is possible that there are groups that take balance as paramount and point buy might be right for them at any stage of maturity. So, yes, I still think point buy is immature. I think the people who tend to use it use it because they haven't explored further yet. That would be the definition of immature: still learning what roleplaying has to offer, still learning about the other players and still learning about what they have to offer. Not that such a thing ends or anything though. These are my observations. There is no "situation for me to deal with," this isn't about my personal crusade against point buy, this certainly isn't about roleplay versus mechanics (I have NO idea where that came from) and this isn't just me acting cool. This is actually how I feel. I kinda thought the idea of the forum was to spead ideas. This thread, in some strange way, helped me learn something new about group dynamics. I like to spread my thoughts as they tend to come from a different background and perspective. While this has gotten me called a jerk twelve thousand times, its a small price to pay for the half dozen people who find what I say useful.
strcpy 12-30-04, 04:57 AM	Well this is how I do it. Roll 4d6, take the best 3 rolls. If your total score for all attributes is 70 or below, reroll. Once you have your stats. If you don't have at least one ability as an 18. You can swop out your current highest ability score, 1 for 1 with other ability scores until you get to one 18 ability score. Reason is, every one likes to have an 18 someplace, and everyone likes to have slightly above average characters.
The Man from Uncle 12-30-04, 05:06 AM	Nom, thanks for the appreciation, especially in light of my rather sacastic remarks. I really do have no problem playing a weak character and i think that having the chance to do so (as well as the chance to play the uber-hulk) makes for a better thorough roleplay experiance. I've nothing against a party being of roughly equal power, but it seems like a missed opportunity if gaming group never explore the potential value of disparity. I think 3.5 provides enough balance with its other mechanics to insure that even a comparitively weak stated character will still be able to do SOMETHING. Theres a recent thread on 'Whats a player to do?' called something like 'What stats do people think are playable?' thats pretty good. Cantankerous, i agree with Ongorth that point-buy is a kind of safety net for those who can't deal with random dice roles or can't work out what more they want than just what the mechanics are set up for. As for your long description of a character that could be played using point buy, i am still with Stuntman on this. Point buy has a propensity to lead to cookie cutter builds. As much as I am a roleplayer i do think that stats and roleplay are not linked, i do think that roleplay options are, however slightly, restricted if the party must always be of roughly equal power characters. As long as the party balances out as the right level of power the mechanics won't be affected Roxlimn, you make an interesting point that i sort of agree with (even if you don't mention that dice rolling can lead you to having to accept 2 or 3 stats of less than 10). I was not aware of that rule in the phb about characters not being playable with stats that were too low. But despite that, i find that if you roll too low the DM tends to want to change your stats a bit so that its more sporting for him. Though that normally only involves changing a very low stat to just a low one.
Roxlimn 12-30-04, 05:08 AM	Ongorth: I think that labelling vast numbers of people as "immature" is a bad move to begin with, but I gues that's just me. One of the reasons point buy is effective is because it allows people with different playing styles to play together without rubbing each other the wrong way. I frequently have to DM diverse groups of players each with their own expectations from the game, and point buy helps me to meet those expectations without giving me the kind of headaches normal die rolling can occasionally bring. This may or may not have anything to do with maturity. Who's to say that a player who enjoys the tactical side of D&D combat is being immature? Not I, at any rate. I say he just likes that part of the game and stop speaking right there. There are people who like the roleplaying part and can do without the mechanical aspects. Who's to say they're immature? Again, not I. I just say they like the roleplaying part and leave it at that. Live and let live, I always say.
Cantankerous 12-30-04, 07:21 AM	Well, for the reasons stated and several others, I have to disagree with both Unk and Ongorth here. From my perspective I've seen exactly the opposite. Too, I think that at least subliminally, every gaming group that "clicks" quickly decides what they want from any given game. Nor do I see that in and of itself as a maturity issue. From the VERY specific defintion of maturity, I don't see that aspect of it at all. I do now see where you're coming from Ongorth. I completely disagree with your assessment, but I understand it. I've read back on some of your posts in other threads and the DM-less gaming style, for instance, suggests where you "live" as a gamer and makes alot of this clearer. I'm surprised that you and your group have clung to D&D to do this though, as it may be one of the single worst venues for it (IMO of course) that exists since the game engine is so tacticly driven, but, 'telle est la vie', I don't need to understand it to see where you are coming from. Again and again and again, especially on these boards, I've seen the "well I rolled really well" excuse used to provide cover for some uber monster who's upsetting game balance in a group, or the same thing from DMs who have allowed monster point buys that are likewise disrupting everybody in those groups enjoyment, according to the postsers themselves, all with the same war cry of "too much". The randomized method makes this infinitely more endemic to the games than the standard point buy or even the other two higher point buys. Again, the reason for this being that the game IS specificly balanced in this incarnation for just such a systemic application. There is no debate there. THAT exists as it's own static reality. The designers have told us so. So, it is in deviating from the basic design in a way that provides more bonuses with less deficits that I personally see as less mature, by the definition of maturity. Not immature, necessarily, simply less mature or matured. It's like using cheat codes on a video game that give more lives or higher stats in the RP video games. The only person that is being cheated is the person doing it. As a point of fact I am presently using a randomized method again in my games right now. From about 300 posts ago I talked about what we were doing this time and how. Point buys are fine in the 25 to 28 point range (my favorite being 28, I like heroic PC's) without getting over powered, but there are other ways to get almost the same results, but with a bit more variation which can be fun. I'm presently testing one that seems to work nicely. I use a 3d6+1, rolled seven times, dropping the lowest of the seven rolls, arrange as desired, with one big caveat... the roll can not go above 18 irregardless of the dice. The range thus created is 4-18 with 11.8 being the roughly demonstrated average after fifty rolled groups of stats The three pc's presently have among them three stats with penalties, five with no bonuses or penalties and three with high (+3 or +4) bonuses or penalties. The other seven stats between them are in the 11-14 range. No one is overpowered but the groups big Barbarian has his 18 Strength (nicley balanced by his 8 Wisdom) that he can be so proud of for instance, so it seems to be working well. It worked out fine, but mainly BECAUSE the four (eventually) player characters generated worked out to within the 26-29 point buy range by this randomized method. The method CAN work, certainly, it just works best when happenstance gives you a hand. As someone else here pointed out, role playing is not develoved from the stats. Unfortunately (perhaps) the game engine IS derived from the stat interaction with the race and class matrix. This game is not either a role playing game or a tactical game. It's a combination of both and works best when the two aspects work harmoniously with one another. Isshia
clarkvalentine 12-30-04, 09:34 AM	Cantankerous, i agree with Ongorth that point-buy is a kind of safety net for those who can't deal with random dice roles Question: Do you pick your PC's race and classes randomly? Why or why not? Edit: I'm not trying to catch you in a contradiction, I'm just trying to illustrate a point. Some people might enjoy trying a randomly determined race, sex, and class. Most, however, don't. Some prefer randomly generated stats. Some don't. People prefer different levels of randomness. It's not a matter of being able to "deal with" anything, nor is it a matter of needing a "safety net". It's simply a matter of preference.
astute1 12-30-04, 09:38 AM	Again and again and again, especially on these boards, I've seen the "well I rolled really well" excuse used to provide cover for some uber monster who's upsetting game balance in a group That one reason is enough for me to switch to point buy, and to recommend it to others. How many campaigns have you played in where one player shows up with 2 18's in his best stats, or the DM's pet NPC has uber-stats? Too many, I'd bet. My personal opinion is that DMs should give at least the illusion of balance and fairness. Otherwise, the players begin to think that their actions have no influence on the game, which in turn causes them to act more outlandishly, so as to be recognized. I think that having an obviously balanced character generation system lets the players know right up front that you're a DM who is interested in balanced play, and gets things off on the right foot from the start.
Stuntman 12-30-04, 01:49 PM	My personal opinion is that DMs should give at least the illusion of balance and fairness. Otherwise, the players begin to think that their actions have no influence on the game, which in turn causes them to act more outlandishly, so as to be recognized. I think that having an obviously balanced character generation system lets the players know right up front that you're a DM who is interested in balanced play, and gets things off on the right foot from the start. Although it is necessary that the DM appear fair to the players, I think that this fairness has more to do with how the game is run than how the characters are created. Even with the dice rolling method of generating characters, everyone knows up front that some PC's will have higher stats than others. As long as the DM handles the character generation fairly like witnessing all of the rolls himself or have the rolls made in front of other PC's, you can have this perception of fairness even when using a random stat generation method. Even if the DM uses a point buy system, he can still make the game appear unfair by the way he runs the game. Things like making certain NPC's seemingly impossible to kill or impossible to keep alive will give a sense of unfairness. If the PC's feel that they are more or less forced into specific courses of actions, the game will appear unfair even of all the PC's are balanced stat-wise. In any party, the type of characters will generally be varied. There may be a possiblility that two players choose the exact same class, race, skills and feats. In this rare case, the PC with the higher stats will be strictly better. In general, there will enough variety that even if the paladin has higher stats than the ranger, both will be able to make significant contributions to the party because they each have different skills and abilities. If the paladin's stats are equivalent to a 32-point point buy and the ranger's stats are equivalent to 25, both will still be able to contribute. Likely the ranger will still be able to scout way better than the paladin could. The paladin will be able to do other things better. Role playing wise, the balance would be more dependent on the ability of the players than the stats. Good role players will be able to enjoy either of these example characters equally as much. If the play group is less interested in role playing and more into the tactical situations, then the players may feel there is some injustice when one player has higher stats than others. Not every group will feel this way. If your group does, then to make everyone feel more equal, the point-buy method may be better. I've played with groups who are more hack and slash and the group does not have a problem with one PC having higher stats than another. Every situation will be different and will call for different stat generation methods.
Cantankerous 12-30-04, 02:06 PM	One thing to keep in mind, to partially retract something I alluded to earlier, although my allusion to it was in a differing context, is that it is NOT wholely true that stats have nothing to do with role playing. They do have a good deal to do with role playing. If you have a 7 intelligence and a 9 charisma and then you play your character as a sophisticate, able to talk off the cuff on any of a dozen differing subjects with great aplomb, whther you have any ranks in the skill you are discussing or not, then friend, you are NOT role playing. If your character has a 20 strnegth that is not founded on magic by atleast 6 points, then bubby, you better not try to describe the character as "a skinny little guy, the kind you'd never notice". Cause and consequence NEEDS to be applied to the way the character is run stat wise. If you're a 3'2" inch halfling with a strength of eight then shaking someone isn't going to be terribly intimidating. "A slow, sly, sadistic smile as you clean under your finger nails with the point of the evilly glinting stilleto" is going to be MUCH more effective with any DM worth his weight in soggy oatmeal. Stats DO have a relationship to role play and thus a great divergency between the stats in any given party of adventurers is just plain GOING TO have a large impact on how the game progresses from a more than solely tactical stand point. Isshia
Palin the Wizard 12-30-04, 06:06 PM	Yes, they do. But 8 Str can be roleplayed equally well as 18 Str. They can be roleplayed--that doesn't change. Thus, stats have no impact on whether or not you can roleplay a character (though it affects *how* you roleplay it).
happycows 12-30-04, 06:24 PM	Usually if someone rolls 5 18s and a 12 by some freak luck chance. The dm will give other players more stats to add anywhere. Usually you want to roll stats for a HIGH POWERED CAMPAIGN. Meaning you go fight two lvl fighters by yourself as a level one fighter... and win. After all you're heroes. The dms does say if you're going to run a high powered campaign let players roll two columns of 4d6. Or give them a 30 something point buy... or more.
Twisted Puppy 12-30-04, 07:37 PM	Man from Uncle: I'm glad you've had the opportunity to play characters that were basically spear-carriers and enjoy it. That speaks very well of the group you were gaming with. However, the fact that someone has no desire to play a squire -type character does not mean they're "missing out" on any important aspect of the game. D&D is a GAME, and the point of the game is to have fun. If someone finds playing a weak character is NOT fun, they'll either a) ask the DM for a character more in line with the rest of the party or b) leave the game. Why play at all if you aren't having fun? We've had one table in our game group that played seriously uber-munchkin characters. Know what? They had a blast. As long as everyone is having a good time in the game, IMO there's nothing is being done wrong. Was it the kind of game I personally enjoy? No. That doesn't mean that I should criticize them or tell them "You're playing the game wrong. Your characters are way too powerful." (The players in question were all high school age.) I encouraged them to give lower powered characters a try, since they may find the game more stimulating with less than god-like characters. I think the most idiotic comment I ever heard at our game group was, "I'm getting really concerned about the quality of roleplaying here at the club." Not the quality of roleplaying in his game, but an entire group (about 30 people at the time) who did not all have the same ideas about fantasy RPGs that he did. My point (which I'm trying to make despite sleep deprivation) is that someone's personal preference about how they generate a character, power level, and type of character they prefer to play, has nothing to do with their maturity or roleplaying ability. It's a personal preference, nothing more. The judge of maturity is how they go about expressing their preferences, and how they react to not getting exactly what they want. I do NOT think that looking at the game set-up, and deciding it isn't a game you would enjoy, is immature. I'd much rather someone say, "Thanks, but I don't think I want to be in this type of game," than to join, be unhappy, and ruin the game for everyone else. Judge their roleplaying ability on what they do with the character, not what happens to be in the stat blocks. A Happy New Year to All.
Cantankerous 12-31-04, 02:29 AM	Yes, they do. But 8 Str can be roleplayed equally well as 18 Str. They can be roleplayed--that doesn't change. Thus, stats have no impact on whether or not you can roleplay a character (though it affects *how* you roleplay it). It is, however, necessary to have a frame of reference to RP decently. The old point about not being able to RP someone with all uber stats still stands. AGain, one can easily enough imagine a single or even possibly a pair of outstanding stats that isn't self experiential by using substitution to act as the backdrop. But for the universal ubermensch there simply is no frame of reference. You can broadly speculate about what it might be like, but with something so central to the concept as how the persons own body and mind operates is ill left to wild speculation. Magic can be replaced, intellectually, with technology to act as a guideline to how to play and interact with the pseudo-self of the character, but the integrity of body/mind can't be so easily glossed over and still be done really well. Everything outside of the essential self is traipings, but within the essential self (the stat block) a frame of reference is necessary to do justice to the character. Isshia
Ander00 12-31-04, 08:18 AM	In our group, we normally use point buy (typically with 30-36 points) and sometimes have the option of choosing to roll for our stats instead. I appreciate the safe nature of point-buy, but every once in a while, I like to gamble a little. The same goes for my players, and thus I also let them choose between rolling and buying. In one game I play in, I chose the on average inferior 4d6 drop lowest over 36 point-buy and the DM proceeded to roll up stats worth over 50 points for me. That could've been potentially bad, but I don't think the character in question is particularly overshadowing. Though that might have to do with being a (Dwarven) Bard. cheers
Palin the Wizard 12-31-04, 09:15 AM	It is, however, necessary to have a frame of reference to RP decently. The old point about not being able to RP someone with all uber stats still stands. AGain, one can easily enough imagine a single or even possibly a pair of outstanding stats that isn't self experiential by using substitution to act as the backdrop. But for the universal ubermensch there simply is no frame of reference. You can broadly speculate about what it might be like, but with something so central to the concept as how the persons own body and mind operates is ill left to wild speculation. Magic can be replaced, intellectually, with technology to act as a guideline to how to play and interact with the pseudo-self of the character, but the integrity of body/mind can't be so easily glossed over and still be done really well. Everything outside of the essential self is traipings, but within the essential self (the stat block) a frame of reference is necessary to do justice to the character. Isshia I fail to see your point. Excessive stats may be hard to roleplay (18+ in any mental stat, for example), but even if it is difficult, it is hardly impossible. Roleplaying a character with 18 in all stats is very difficult, but again, I don't see it as impossible. It would be the same as roleplaying a character with all low stats.
Twisted Puppy 12-31-04, 10:10 AM	It is, however, necessary to have a frame of reference to RP decently. The old point about not being able to RP someone with all uber stats still stands. AGain, one can easily enough imagine a single or even possibly a pair of outstanding stats that isn't self experiential by using substitution to act as the backdrop. But for the universal ubermensch there simply is no frame of reference. You can broadly speculate about what it might be like, but with something so central to the concept as how the persons own body and mind operates is ill left to wild speculation. Magic can be replaced, intellectually, with technology to act as a guideline to how to play and interact with the pseudo-self of the character, but the integrity of body/mind can't be so easily glossed over and still be done really well. Everything outside of the essential self is traipings, but within the essential self (the stat block) a frame of reference is necessary to do justice to the character. Isshia What you are saying in the above comment is that roleplaying is based on roll-playing, which is of course not true. The stats do not determine a character's outlook on life, reaction to certain situations, quirks, or foibles. Roleplaying is about the personality of the character more than their stats. Stats might affect the mindset of the character to a point - but ONLY to a point. The character's outlook will be based more on what they have experienced, just like the real world. I have characters with personality traits have nothing to do with their stats because I had a concept of how that character acted. For example, having a lawful good character that is bitter doesn't require or preclude any particular set of stats.
clarkvalentine 12-31-04, 12:19 PM	What you are saying in the above comment is that roleplaying is based on roll-playing, which is of course not true. "roll-playing" - ugh. What a term. If you're seriously saying that you should be able to play a 10 STR character as a big strapping bruiser - which is the sort of thing he was talking about - I think you have a very different understanding of what "roleplay" means than I do.
Twisted Puppy 12-31-04, 12:29 PM	"roll-playing" - ugh. What a term. If you're seriously saying that you should be able to play a 10 STR character as a big strapping bruiser - which is the sort of thing he was talking about - I think you have a very different understanding of what "roleplay" means than I do. No, I'm saying that if the limit of your "roleplaying" is matching up your character's actions with his stats, you're leaving a lot out. No, you won't play a Str 10 guy as a big, strapping bruiser. But maybe the 18 STR, 16 CON fighter that is a terror in battle has a weakness when it comes to lost puppies and stray kittens. You open his room in the inn and are overcome by animal dander.
The Man from Uncle 01-01-05, 02:38 AM	Twisted Puppy I don't want you to think that i enjoy playing the spear carrier (though i have played with a character who's most useful practical function seemed to be caring the torch), i merely meant that i didn't have a problem hitting a creature 35% of the time for 1d6+3 while the rest of the group are doing 1d8+5 or so 75% of the time. Even in combat a weak character can normally provide something that helps the rest of the party because the game mechanics mean that even a low stated character will have some abilities. I do also like to play the most devestating character too from time to time. The potential for unbalance give more variety than everyone being the same all the time. But you are quite right about having fun, that is the point. I reserve the right though to question someone who claims it's all about the roleplay when, in part, its about a stat generation method that leaves out certain roleplay possibilities. Though i do see that some people will prefer designing their character in the safe enviroment of point buy instead of the potentially hazardous enviroment of dice roll. Which for me is why it is less about maturity and more about excitment. Thats why i describe point buy as a safty net. clarkvalentine I don't have a system of choosing chacters in thats what you mean. Sometimes i will choose in advance of rolling what i will be, sometimes i roll first and think about it (normally this will be when i die mid game and won't be back till next week. The DM lets me roll my stats there and then and reflect on it for a while). If i get poor stats i tend to try and find a personality and niche that even a low powered character can sit in. Its hard to be an out an out fighter if you've got str and con both less than 14 and its hard to be a mage without 15 or so in yor prime stat, so i often multiclass to insure i don't become just a lousy version of a single class character. Right now i have a character in mind that i plan to play next time i am back in England (a bard whoes method of inspiration is shouting encouragment without really getting involved, like a football fan. He'll probably have a level of fighter thrown in to make him more of the robust and physical type. A Football fan/hooligan that can tell a good tale and get people listening. Not bright, but charasmatic in some low-brow way) and i can't imagine that any set of stats will be so bad as to make that impossible.
Cantankerous 01-01-05, 07:38 AM	What you are saying in the above comment is that roleplaying is based on roll-playing, which is of course not true. The stats do not determine a character's outlook on life, reaction to certain situations, quirks, or foibles. Roleplaying is about the personality of the character more than their stats. Stats might affect the mindset of the character to a point - but ONLY to a point. The character's outlook will be based more on what they have experienced, just like the real world. I have characters with personality traits have nothing to do with their stats because I had a concept of how that character acted. For example, having a lawful good character that is bitter doesn't require or preclude any particular set of stats. No, I'm not saying that at all. I am saying that if you have a six strength and a sixteen intelligence then you are going to realize that your 3'0" tall halfling isn't going to intimidate the ogre by shaking him. Is this too far fetched? Personality IS dependant on the person to a VERY large extent, upon his physical/mental matrix. A person who is 98lbs soaking wet and has the game equivalent of a strength of 7 isn't going to believe or behave as though they have a strength of 17 unless they are mentally unbalanced. To ignore this is the real Roll playing. Playing within you're capabilities, which is defined by your stats, IS ROLE playing, the assuming of the animus/personailty/role of the imaginary person in the game world. Anyone who is putting their life on the line, succesfully, as an adventurer must, IS, period, no discussion, very honest with themselves (at least sub-consciously) about what they are capable of. If they are not, those life threatening situations WILL leave them dead, soon. Luck can only carry you so far. Too effectively play a role, instead of playing a roll (as in rolled stat block for which you have no real understanding) you have to have some idea of what it is that you are doing. That is the ESSENCE of Role playing. Just winging it by pure imagination without the thoughtful interpretation of the intellect is not Role playing. Isshia
clarkvalentine 01-02-05, 06:47 PM	I don't have a system of choosing chacters in thats what you mean. No, what I mean is this: Why is it that nonrandom stat generation is a crutch, but nonrandom other parts of PC generation is fine? It's all a matter of preference.
Palin the Wizard 01-03-05, 12:01 AM	Behaving as your stats dictate doesn't require an ounce of roleplaying--that's just playing the game. Roleplaying is far, far more than that. Rollplaying is just following the rules of the game, without roleplaying the character. IE, realizing that your 7 Str halfling can't intimidate an ogre is not roleplaying; it's following the game. If you don't roleplay at the same time, you're then rollplaying.
Cantankerous 01-03-05, 04:03 AM	Main Entry: role Variant(s): also rôle /'rOl/ Function: noun Etymology: French rôle, literally, roll, from Old French rolle 1 a (1) : a character assigned or assumed (2) : a socially expected behavior pattern usually determined by an individual's status in a particular society b : a part played by an actor or singer Main Entry: 2play Function: verb intransitive senses 4 a : to engage or take part in a game b : to perform in a position in a specified manner <the outfielders were playing deep> c : to perform an action during one's turn in a game d : GAMBLE e (1) : to behave or conduct oneself in a specified way <play safe> (2) : to feign a specified state or quality <play dead> (3) : to take part in or assent to some activity : Role Playing also includes those ideals of it that you seem to want to exclude because they don't fit your pre-suppositions in support of your position. They DO include understanding that your halfling at 5% the ogres mass is not going to be intimidating it by shaking it. The role is not ONLY the inner personality. It is by no means the exterior personality only either. No one in this thread has even hinted that this is the case either though, so I don't know where you've surfaced with that absurd notion. The balance of the two, as in most things, that middle ground is necessary to role playing. It is part of the actors craft, or the role players in a role playing game, by defintion, to stay within the bounds of the "part played" every bit as much as it is performing the position in a specified manner. Thus, again, staying within your stats is part of the whole role playing process, as your stats define not only what the character is able to do within the game, but ALSO what the PERSON is able to do within the game world. THAT, to me, is the essence of role playing, understanding that your protrayal is that of a person in a world, not simply a set of statistics in a game. Yet to understand the person, his/her capabilities, you must properly understand and emulate the characters statistics. Isshia
fractal 01-03-05, 06:43 AM	Back on the original topic of the thread... My group originally played 4d6, drop the lowest. However, after some annoying instances (some with munchkin players, some just with strange luck), we switched to 30 Point Buy. That worked pretty well, as people could build whatever sort of character they wanted, and everyone was more or less on the same footing (a new player sort of messed himself up by choosing all odd stats, but that's still nothing like what rolling did). Recently, we've been using Stat Draft. Everyone rolls up a value for each stat (Str, Dex, Con, etc) and puts them into a communal pool. Then we take turns selecting a stat from the pool until everyone has one of each stat. In many ways, Stat Draft is the best of both worlds. Everyone is on an equal footing, but there's more randomness even than standard rolling. It has its flaws (what doesn't?), but I strongly recommend it to a group looking for a new and interesting way to build characters.
aaron3579 01-03-05, 07:09 AM	*I've only read the first and last posts, but here's my $0.02 anyway* I think that it is important to remember that it's not PCs high stats that make them heroes, or "better than the average joe," rather his or her hero status is defined by strength of character. Think about the word "character." When someone says "he's quite a character," they aren't referring to how much he can bench press, or how attractive he is, or even how fast he can calculate the square root of two-thousand, seven-hundred, ninety-eight. No, "character" means something more than the sum of all stats. And there's nothing wrong with low stats-- lots of role-playing potential there... Plus the DM won't be forced to throw them up against red dragons at level 6 (a bit extreme, I know, but I think you take my point). Of course, if power gaming is your thing, by all means, meet my friends Hans and Franz. And they are here to pump [clap] you up. So long as your having fun. Post script: I’ve always had the most fun when playing more realistic characters i.e. weaklings… Mayhap you would like it if you really gave it a fair shake?
Asmodeous 01-03-05, 08:01 AM	I once did a test of the 4d6 drop the lowest die system. I rolled 200 time 4d6, discounted the lowest dice, wrote the results down on paper and then added up all the sets via point buy and then averaged the results. The final average of 200 sets of 4d6 - lowest d6 was 33.05 The results where interesting to say the least. The main thing to note is that I had to house rule a point buy "price" for stats lower than a 9 as such = 8 = 0 points. 7 = -1 points. 6 = -2 points. 5 = -3 points. 4 = -4 points. 3 = -5 points. So the results may not be directly comparable to the dmg p 169 as this states that all stats start at an 8, and it is possible to roll 4d6 and get all ones, as I did in this test, as well as dropping 4 sixes as well. I was mainly looking at die roll chances mainly. The worst set of stats was; 9,6,13,7,10,4 = 1 measly point buy. The best set of stats was; 15,16,18,16,18,12 = 64 point buy which just has to be the dreamiest set of stats! Our group uses a house rule system. The player chooses the stats he/she believes suit the character and then gains DM and other player approval. My highest set of stats was for my Paladin, as all of us believe that the paladin is a person born to the position and not trained so therefore is naturally a "super human" person. His stats are; 16,11,14,12,14,18 which is bordering on godly = 45 points.
Palin the Wizard 01-03-05, 11:00 PM	Cantankerous, you can play the game perfectly according to the rules without roleplaying even in the slightest. I should know; my last group did *nothing* but rollplay. Following the rules is NOT roleplaying. Realizing your 7 Str halfling is not capable of scaring an ogre is not roleplaying--it's just understanding the rules. If the halfling realizes it in-game, that's different... then you're roleplaying. But for you as a player to understand that (according to the rules) your 7 Str halfling is poor at intimidation, that's rollplaying. You're looking at nothing but numbers and figures. You can also have a game where there is nothing but roleplay--ie, the rules are ignored, which is the other end of the spectrum. Good games incorporate *both* roleplaying and rollplaying to some extent, because either extreme is utterly undesireble.
Nightgaunt 01-03-05, 11:24 PM	Thus, again, staying within your stats is part of the whole role playing process, as your stats define not only what the character is able to do within the game, but ALSO what the PERSON is able to do within the game world. THAT, to me, is the essence of role playing, understanding that your protrayal is that of a person in a world, not simply a set of statistics in a game. Yet to understand the person, his/her capabilities, you must properly understand and emulate the characters statistics. Isshia Your last few posts have been some of the most intelligent and well thought out I have seen. (There are others here who have similar abilities and I am enjoying this all tremendously). Unfortunately I think many people are missing your theme of Physiology is essential to Psychology which is the primary reason I singled out your words as opposed to the many other (some equally good) reasonable comments. While some may understand what you are saying, judging from responses I am guessing a fair number do not, I think you are 100% and equally say that a person would have an easier time role-playing all 3's then they would all 18's (if indeed they could conceptualize such a possibility). ----Moving along to the main topic---- In my group you could either roll for your stats at the standard 4d6 drop lowest, or you use the 30 point weighted buy system that Never Winter Nights and other D20 video games used (It didn't seem broken to me why make up my own?). Ultimately some of the players chose the point-buy while other characters (who loudly proclaimed Old-Skool) rolled their dice and took their chances. I don't really see anything inherently wrong with either system.
Cantankerous 01-04-05, 02:53 AM	Palin, Good games incorporate *both* roleplaying and rollplaying to some extent, because either extreme is utterly undesireble. I think you just paraphrased me perfectly. I disagree very strongly with the other end of your statement, but I think also that NightGaunt is on to something. Did I not communicate well the concept that, as NightGaunt so well illuminated it, "Physiology is essential to Psychology"? Playing within your stats IS most definately part of Role playing as well as part of playing within the rules for THAT reason. Oh, and NightGaunt, thank you for the compliment. but even more for clarifying my position. I had thought that I had stated that somewhere along the line in an earlier post, but never did. Thank you again for catching it. Isshia
The Man from Uncle 01-04-05, 09:56 AM	clarkvalentine - 'No, what I mean is this: Why is it that nonrandom stat generation is a crutch, but nonrandom other parts of PC generation is fine?' How formulated is fun? I get ideas, some run some don't. But i don't think within a predetermined power level of character.
clarkvalentine 01-04-05, 10:29 AM	How formulated is fun? I get ideas, some run some don't. But i don't think within a predetermined power level of character. But that's a pretty arbitrary distinction. Like I said, it's a matter of preference.
starfire311 01-04-05, 12:16 PM	I prefer 28-32 mostly used 28... but I really don't care what the stat generation is if I am playing... If I am DMing I want it to be balanced within the group if the campaign and players want I will run a straight 18s game. For the people that advocate random stat generation... would you also allow characters to start at different levels or give some characters extra feats to start with or extra stat boosting items to start with. Because that is what you are doing. According to the savage species rules, unbalanced stats modifiers are worth a level adjustment. so if 2 players roll up stats one gets 14, 14, 12, 10, 8 and the other gets 16, 14, 12, 10, 10 the second player got 2 free stat boosting items or an extra level or 4 free epic feats. Why not just randomly determine levels if you don't care about balance.
Nightgaunt 01-04-05, 02:41 PM	so if 2 players roll up stats one gets 14, 14, 12, 10, 8 and the other gets 16, 14, 12, 10, 10 the second player got 2 free stat boosting items or an extra level or 4 free epic feats. Why not just randomly determine levels if you don't care about balance. Alright, I don't own any Savage Species Material, but if a character starts with bonus feats, levels, and items for high stats yes that is extremly unbalancing. Though I can in theory understand why they would start with more feats, levels, or items for high stats I don't think I'd ever allow a rule like that, assuming it is not being misrepresented. Wow... Well if that's the case in Savage Species I'll just avoid Savage Species.
starfire311 01-04-05, 03:27 PM	Alright, I don't own any Savage Species Material, but if a character starts with bonus feats, levels, and items for high stats yes that is extremly unbalancing. Though I can in theory understand why they would start with more feats, levels, or items for high stats I don't think I'd ever allow a rule like that, assuming it is not being misrepresented. Wow... Well if that's the case in Savage Species I'll just avoid Savage Species. wow, there must be some serious miscommunication going on here. you talk about savage species, but you didnt even quote the part of my post in which I talked about it. I'll quote it for you According to the savage species rules, unbalanced stats modifiers are worth a level adjustment. That was all I used from savage species. i.e. a race with a +2 Dex, +2 Int, +2 Wis, -2 Chr would have unbalanced stats and thus would warrent a level adjustment. So if one character were to roll up the same stats as someone else but have a +2 dex, +2 int, +2 Wis, -2 Chr they would be effectively one level higher,although it would be free, than the character with the lower stats.
Nightgaunt 01-04-05, 03:49 PM	Ah I thought you were implying that different stats give you different abilties, I see now you are illistrating the point that you shouldn't do it all randomly. --N/M then I take back my Savage Species comment.-- :rolleyes:
Palin the Wizard 01-05-05, 02:23 AM	Did I not communicate well the concept that, as NightGaunt so well illuminated it, "Physiology is essential to Psychology"? Playing within your stats IS most definately part of Role playing as well as part of playing within the rules for THAT reason. It was quite clear that was what you meant. I disagree. You do not have to roleplay even in the slightest in order to play within the boundaries your stats give you. If you roleplay, you will of course incorporate stats to some degree (to either acknowledge or dismiss them--in-game, of course; otherwise you're not roleplaying), but that goes without saying.
Cantankerous 01-05-05, 02:44 AM	To acknowledge a stat as a stat, in game, is certainly not role playing, but to acknowledge a the game concept of the stat as an in game reality is central to role playing... and certainly does NOT go without saying. Read these boards Palin and you'll see countless examples of people who claim to be role playing who completely ignore the statistical basis of the character. I don't know if I can find it again, but my ridiculous example of the low strength halfling shaking an ogre that was being interrogated was seen on these very boards... by a person who was congratulating themselves on their role playing skills. Also, the place from which this entire line of reasoning was brought up was the old mega stat-ed characters, and how they were no harder to role play than any others... which is ridiculous as well, for the reasons already stated cited again and again and again. So, since you're disagreeing in basis with the "physiology is essential to psychology" statement, how do you well role play an intelligence of 24? How do you role play something you can't even understand? Isshia
aaron3579 01-05-05, 03:04 AM	And lets not forget CHA. A GREAT deal of role-playing goes into accurately portraying an abysmal charisma score. Or a god-like score.
The Man from Uncle 01-05-05, 03:30 AM	Starfire, you seem to be discussing balance in terms of.....well rollplaying. I don't think any other serious minded poster here was (or at least most of those posters have moved away from defending 'point-buy' in that light). Few of us really care if a character is more powerful or less powerful because for few people is a characters power what makes them play the game. The most sensible position, by far, for point buy was made by clarkvalentine, Cantankerous and others, who all use point but to issure that character concepts can be played as desired. As clarkvalentine said, its about preferance. I will accuse his system of being dull and he will accuse mine of ruining good ideas for the sake of randomness. For those who use point buy because they don't trust themselves in a potentially unbalanced enviroment....well that is where the charge of immaturity came from some several dozen posts ago and why i initially described point buy as a safety net. It makes sense, in light of potential power problems, to use it if you are unsure of the type of person you are playing with (in that they might cheat given the chance to roll dice). If however you know and trust both yourself and your table, the only thing point buy has to offer is comfortable predictability to develope character concepts in.
Cantankerous 01-05-05, 04:14 AM	I don't know Unc. I don't see staying away from something you're not comfortable with as immature. In certain situations it may show a greater degree of both maturity and self honesty to do so. Besides which, the primary rationale for my coming to dislike "completely" random generation methods (like 4d6 take and drop) is the abuse it recieves in comparison to point buy driven methods. I and my group got lucky with our latest batch of player characters. They are all relatively close in capability and it doesn't make things to difficult to present encounters. But some of the NPC's... I really am beginning to think that their is too much that is ridiculous about a system that makes it possible to have a 17 strength and a 7 constitution. I doubt that it would even be physicly possible. Certainly I've never seen anyone who was sickly that they could hardly walk outside in the winter in a wet climate without getting a bad cold who was a near Olympian in strength. The two things seem completely at odds and unreasonable. How do you describe and envision such a person? Long heavy muscles and a palid skin tone? The only way I could see it was in someone immensely fat who none the less still had a great degree of physical strength. I suppose that since mass is NOT part of the relationship of strength in this game, for how else do you ever describe a twelvth level halfling barbarian with a 19 strength; which would be the rough equivalent of a human being with a 30 strength, you might be able to sneak in under the radar there, but how else? Isshia
fractal 01-05-05, 04:26 AM	Starfire, you seem to be discussing balance in terms of.....well rollplaying. I don't think any other serious minded poster here was (or at least most of those posters have moved away from defending 'point-buy' in that light). Few of us really care if a character is more powerful or less powerful because for few people is a characters power what makes them play the game. Point Buy and rolling have about the same average character strength. Sometimes rolling is higher than a 30 PB, sometimes it's lower. However, the randomness of rolling means that you can expect different members of the same party to differ in strength. Sometimes these differences can be very dramatic. Now sure, rp'ing a sidekick can be fun. However, playing one when you were expecting to play a hero can be, well, a kick in the side. Especially in a game with lots of combat, or other stat-based activities. Low stats means you're less effective, and in general it just doesn't matter as much what you do. Just as one example of two characters who differ in only one stat, the 14 Str level 2 Fighter deals 2d6+3 damage with his Greatsword. The 18 Str level 2 Fighter can use Power Attack to deal 2d6+10 damage with his, with an identical attack bonus. The latter Fighter is almost twice as effective as the former one.
fractal 01-05-05, 04:32 AM	The only way I could see it was in someone immensely fat who none the less still had a great degree of physical strength. I suppose that since mass is NOT part of the relationship of strength in this game, for how else do you ever describe a twelvth level halfling barbarian with a 19 strength; which would be the rough equivalent of a human being with a 30 strength, you might be able to sneak in under the radar there, but how else? Well, by the rules, a Halfling Barbarian with a 19 strength is equivalent to a Human Barbarian with a 21 strength. The max load for the Halfling will be 262 lbs, the max load for the Human will be 460 lbs. Maybe not entirely to scale, but not terribly unreasonable. A 30 Strength Human has a max load of 1600 lbs. That's a bit out there.
Palin the Wizard 01-05-05, 05:55 AM	To acknowledge a stat as a stat, in game, is certainly not role playing, but to acknowledge a the game concept of the stat as an in game reality is central to role playing... and certainly does NOT go without saying. Read these boards Palin and you'll see countless examples of people who claim to be role playing who completely ignore the statistical basis of the character. I meant that it goes without saying for the roleplayers who know what roleplaying entails. I don't know if I can find it again, but my ridiculous example of the low strength halfling shaking an ogre that was being interrogated was seen on these very boards... by a person who was congratulating themselves on their role playing skills.I don't see your problem--obviously, they are not roleplaying, no matter their claims. Also, the place from which this entire line of reasoning was brought up was the old mega stat-ed characters, and how they were no harder to role play than any others... which is ridiculous as well, for the reasons already stated cited again and again and again. So, since you're disagreeing in basis with the "physiology is essential to psychology" statement, how do you well role play an intelligence of 24? How do you role play something you can't even understand? Physiology is not *essential* to psychology. It has influence, and a strong one, but it is far from being essential. Charisma is essential, as probably the only score. Self-confidence, self-assertion, derives directly from Cha. But Cha is hardly physiology. Understanding is essential to roleplaying. An Intelligence score of 24 is not incomprehensible (though an Int score of 40 is). I roleplay such high scores by using out-of-game reasoning that would normally not occur to a character in-game. For instance, I had a character with an Int score of 22 naturally (26 with his headband of intellect +4) and a Wisdom score of 18. He arrived in a Modern setting. I had him reason out how things work (electricity, for example), even though he had never seen such things before. It would have been completely incomprehensible to other characters. Similarly, I would have him reason other things that I wouldn't even consider applying to characters with lower mental scores--for instance, he reasoned out how dangerous a gun can be without seeing it fired. That was simply a way of showing his high Int. He was also excessively arrogant (though he began to keep it to himself after a while, as people didn't really appreciate his behavior), which was a character trait directly derived from his high mental scores.
Palin the Wizard 01-05-05, 05:58 AM	I and my group got lucky with our latest batch of player characters. They are all relatively close in capability and it doesn't make things to difficult to present encounters. But some of the NPC's... I really am beginning to think that their is too much that is ridiculous about a system that makes it possible to have a 17 strength and a 7 constitution. I doubt that it would even be physicly possible. Certainly I've never seen anyone who was sickly that they could hardly walk outside in the winter in a wet climate without getting a bad cold who was a near Olympian in strength. The two things seem completely at odds and unreasonable. How do you describe and envision such a person? Long heavy muscles and a palid skin tone? There are ways. There is the excessively large person as you mentioned, but there are others. For instance, a low Con doesn't necessarily mean that you are perpetually sick. It could be a weak heart condition, for instance, or similar sicknesses.
aaron3579 01-05-05, 06:26 AM	I really am beginning to think that their is too much that is ridiculous about a system that makes it possible to have a 17 strength and a 7 constitution. I doubt that it would even be physicly possible. Certainly I've never seen anyone who was sickly that they could hardly walk outside in the winter in a wet climate without getting a bad cold who was a near Olympian in strength. The two things seem completely at odds and unreasonable. How do you describe and envision such a person? Long heavy muscles and a palid skin tone? Isshia No. Think about headlines we've all seen http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200308/17/20030817p2a00m0fp005000c.html and http://astonvilla.blogfootball.com/holtewhogoesthereagain/discuss/msgReader$121?mode=day Or health warnings like http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s1145435.htm Or when for comic relief, the macho-strongman gets a paper-cut and cries for mommy because it turns out Mr. Invincible has no tolerance for pain. These are all examples of low CON high STR situations, and probably more extreme than 10 points. I'm sorry I've gone off on a tangent, but I am leading somewhere: I once played a half-orc fighter. He was a powerhouse. But he had no constitution whatsoever (I rolled pretty crappy). So I made lemonade out of lemons; I just played him as a super-macho tough guy that was really just a big baby as soon as he saw blood. Heaven forbid he should take any damage. Since he was pretty much done fighting after he took the first hit, everything was devoted to defense defense defense. I didn't take the toughness feat b/c I didn't feel like it fit his character, but he could 'dodge' so well, he should have played for Los Angeles. Let me tell you, that was practically the worst character I ever played, yet at the same time, the most fun to role-play. I'm in favor of rolling stats. :D Post script: Post number 156 is only relevant to strictly hack and slash games.
starfire311 01-05-05, 08:54 AM	I still have one main question for people that like to roll stats. If you don't mind variable levels of power in your group, why not determine levels randomly too? Yes it is taken to an extreme, but all to often I ahve been in groups where one player will have 15-20 attribute points over another. What kind of LA would a race that grants a +20 to stats be worth?
aaron3579 01-05-05, 08:15 PM	If you don't mind variable levels of power in your group, why not determine levels randomly too? Because stats and levels of XP are apples and oranges. I never start a new character at anything but level one because I believe that by starting at level 5, you rob yourself of 4 levels of character building. These are the levels that are most precious when considering the overall psychological makeup of said character. These are the levels durring which characters acquire vices, virtues, fears, loves, hates, and quirks. And its always better to role-play through the acquisition of these traits, than to try to fabricate them from nothing.
starfire311 01-06-05, 09:23 AM	Because stats and levels of XP are apples and oranges. I never start a new character at anything but level one because I believe that by starting at level 5, you rob yourself of 4 levels of character building. These are the levels that are most precious when considering the overall psychological makeup of said character. These are the levels durring which characters acquire vices, virtues, fears, loves, hates, and quirks. And its always better to role-play through the acquisition of these traits, than to try to fabricate them from nothing. Really, because when I begin a character they generally all start with all the quirks, vices, fears, and hates they will ever have. For most people these are developed during the adolescent and early adult years and all of my characters start at a human age equivalent of 16-24 well after all of these traits are normally aquired. So if I wanted to role-play through the aquisition of these traits I will have to begin at oh age 0. This can make for an interesting game every once in awhile, but I can't imagine doing it everytime. Fabricate them from nothing, what a bunch of bull, you fabricate the majority of the character's life from nothing, how hard would it to be to throw a few adventures in there.
Cantankerous 01-07-05, 12:21 PM	No. Think about headlines we've all seen http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200308/17/20030817p2a00m0fp005000c.html and http://astonvilla.blogfootball.com/holtewhogoesthereagain/discuss/msgReader$121?mode=day Or health warnings like http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/helthrpt/stories/s1145435.htm Or when for comic relief, the macho-strongman gets a paper-cut and cries for mommy because it turns out Mr. Invincible has no tolerance for pain. These are all examples of low CON high STR situations, and probably more extreme than 10 points. I'm sorry I've gone off on a tangent, but I am leading somewhere: I once played a half-orc fighter. He was a powerhouse. But he had no constitution whatsoever (I rolled pretty crappy). So I made lemonade out of lemons; I just played him as a super-macho tough guy that was really just a big baby as soon as he saw blood. Heaven forbid he should take any damage. Since he was pretty much done fighting after he took the first hit, everything was devoted to defense defense defense. I didn't take the toughness feat b/c I didn't feel like it fit his character, but he could 'dodge' so well, he should have played for Los Angeles. Let me tell you, that was practically the worst character I ever played, yet at the same time, the most fun to role-play. I'm in favor of rolling stats. :D Post script: Post number 156 is only relevant to strictly hack and slash games. That first headline... the person Con, if they were rndered into a character, would likely be in the 14 plus range. You simply do not get to be a top athlete with less of a constitution as that stat is described in the PHB. I've played with pneumonia myself and wound up almost dead because of it. And there are simply people with congenital heart disorders. No matter how high your Con is, a disdavantage like that, to use ED&D terminology, will get you sooner or later. The person would have the high Fortitude and the extra hit points that are the major game ingrediant of Con, they simply would have a deficit, a disadvantage if you are used to second edition or use the UA in your campaign. Isshia
Palin the Wizard 01-08-05, 10:50 AM	Under the RAW, such conditions can be represented only by a Con deficit.
Cantankerous 01-08-05, 05:08 PM	Under the RAW, such conditions can be represented only by a Con deficit. Show me where it says that Palin. If it's RAW you should be able to quote it, not simply infer it. Isshia
aaron3579 01-08-05, 10:44 PM	That first headline... the person Con, if they were rndered into a character, would likely be in the 14 plus range. You simply do not get to be a top athlete with less of a constitution as that stat is described in the PHB. I've played with pneumonia myself and wound up almost dead because of it. And there are simply people with congenital heart disorders. No matter how high your Con is, a disdavantage like that, to use ED&D terminology, will get you sooner or later. The person would have the high Fortitude and the extra hit points that are the major game ingrediant of Con, they simply would have a deficit, a disadvantage if you are used to second edition or use the UA in your campaign. Isshia We have a fundamental difference of opinion regarding exactly what CON refers to, and it won't do any good arguing about it. Although, if a bum-heart doesn't reflect poorly on a person's constitution score, I don't know what would... starfire311: My assertion that early levels are crucial to character development is based on advice given to new players in the 2e PHB. I think. It could be the DMG, but if you check this thread Monday night (after I get home to look at my books) I'll be happy to quote it for you. I'm not inferring that the 2e PHB should be taken as gospel, I just wanted you to know why I feel that way and that that particular opinion is actually based on something other than my own conclusions.
Cantankerous 01-09-05, 03:41 AM	We have a fundamental difference of opinion regarding exactly what CON refers to, and it won't do any good arguing about it. Although, if a bum-heart doesn't reflect poorly on a person's constitution score, I don't know what would... Constitution, according to the SRD version, which is what I have on my comp: "Constitution (Con) Constitution represents your character’s health and stamina. A Constitution bonus increases a character’s hit points, so the ability is important for all classes. You apply your character’s Constitution modifier to: * Each roll of a Hit Die (though a penalty can never drop a result below 1—that is, a character always gains at least 1 hit point each time he or she advances in level). * Fortitude saving throws, for resisting poison and similar threats. * Concentration checks. Concentration is a skill, important to spellcasters, that has Constitution as its key ability. If a character’s Constitution score changes enough to alter his or her Constitution modifier, the character’s hit points also increase or decrease accordingly. " Because a person has a bum heart will not reflect in how well they resist "poisons and similiar threats". It will not impact on how well they react to the stress of long distance running and the like. There are Marathoners with heart conditions and I ask you to tell me how ANY other stat than Constitution can be used to properly represent THEIR incredible abilities. I seem to remember a Kenyan some years back, a 20ish year old man who was setting all kinds of world distance running records who died of a heart attack while sitting at dinner. This does not, of course, reflect on his Constitution. This reflected on a single congenital disturbance in the person... a flaw as it were. A body that in tune and adept is amazingly resiliant to disease, to poisons, esecially to fatigue poisons and you would be hard pressed to find an example of a person more fit, or with greater STAMINA, which is what Constitution is supposed to represent. To Health, the flip side of the issue, is not just single facet. Read those pages you linked carefully and you will find that the people cited were considered to be extrodinarily healthy, with the exception of their single, fatal flaw. THAT was the whole point of those articles. Isshia
Roxlimn 01-09-05, 04:29 AM	I find it completely possible for a person to have great physical strength and yet be constitutionally frail. Brute physical strength isn't always accompanied by a hale and healthy body. I know of several such men who, by dint of disease, are physically strong, but have poor stamina and general health. Lung diseases are notorious for this. These diseases do not actually impact physical strength and anaerobic power. In fact, by limiting the time in which one has to do a particular piece of work, lung diseases can force a person to develop more strength because he simply can't do a task by taking a more "easy-going" approach. Same for some heart diseases, such as valvular lesions or contractility problems. Again, these people aren't necessarily weak, but their poor oxygen reserve usually limits their stamina. People with general lesions such as heart diseases, lung diseases, diabetes and particular liver problems, among other things, generally react poorly to any physical threat. That is why these diseases are taken seriously - they can potentially aggravate any health threat from an annoying one into a life-threatening one. This includes, cuts, burns, poisons, trauma, illness, or many other threats to life you can imagine. In contrast, a person with a perhipheral disability, such as an amputated leg or a poorly set arm can very well be in the fullness of health, highly resistant to the most serious physical injuries and full of stamina and verve. They won't be able to run or climb as well as a full-limbed person, though, and it's likely that their carrying capability can be curtailed as well. While there are athletes with heart conditions, these are rarely of any serious form, as most significant heart conditions preempt training. Even so, these athletes are generally considered to be at a greater risk for sudden death and possible complications compared to similarly conditioned athletes without any diseases. Of course, there's familial factors as well.
Palin the Wizard 01-09-05, 10:00 AM	Show me where it says that Palin. If it's RAW you should be able to quote it, not simply infer it. Isshia With pleasure. Under the Constitution entry in the Abilities section of the PHB: "Constitution represents your character’s health and stamina." A heart disease and similar goes under your health, so unless you invent a houserule where you deal with such apart from Con, they can only be represented by a Con deficit. In fact, you quoted the entry yourself. There are various levels in each stat. Dexterity, for example, represents agility, hand-eye coordination and others, yet no one is trying to say that these have to be the same. For the purpose of the rules, they are--otherwise, we would deal with a whole ton of different stats--yet by flavor, they need not be. So a person with "amazing" Con could have 12-13, with everything but the heart condition be equal to a person with 17-18 Con. For the purpose of the rules, his Con remains 12-13, of course. But people who know him (and who doesn't know about his weak heart condition) would know of his amazing stamina, as that's part of the flavor.
aaron3579 01-09-05, 10:38 AM	Constitution, according to the SRD version, which is what I have on my comp: "Constitution (Con) Constitution represents your character’s health and stamina. A Constitution bonus increases a character’s hit points, so the ability is important for all classes. You apply your character’s Constitution modifier to: * Each roll of a Hit Die (though a penalty can never drop a result below 1—that is, a character always gains at least 1 hit point each time he or she advances in level). * Fortitude saving throws, for resisting poison and similar threats. * Concentration checks. Concentration is a skill, important to spellcasters, that has Constitution as its key ability. If a character’s Constitution score changes enough to alter his or her Constitution modifier, the character’s hit points also increase or decrease accordingly. " Because a person has a bum heart will not reflect in how well they resist "poisons and similiar threats". It will not impact on how well they react to the stress of long distance running and the like. There are Marathoners with heart conditions and I ask you to tell me how ANY other stat than Constitution can be used to properly represent THEIR incredible abilities. I seem to remember a Kenyan some years back, a 20ish year old man who was setting all kinds of world distance running records who died of a heart attack while sitting at dinner. This does not, of course, reflect on his Constitution. This reflected on a single congenital disturbance in the person... a flaw as it were. A body that in tune and adept is amazingly resiliant to disease, to poisons, esecially to fatigue poisons and you would be hard pressed to find an example of a person more fit, or with greater STAMINA, which is what Constitution is supposed to represent. To Health, the flip side of the issue, is not just single facet. Read those pages you linked carefully and you will find that the people cited were considered to be extrodinarily healthy, with the exception of their single, fatal flaw. THAT was the whole point of those articles. Isshia You're squirming. And you're just sore because I, unlike you, backed up my assertions with links to relevant real-life examples, and made you feel like you had egg on your face. Its ok, I'm not very good at swallowing my pride either, but I think its time to put this one to bed. By your logic, the competitors in those "World's Strongest Man" contests should all be top-notch marathon runners. If you think for one moment that guys with muscle mass like that can run back-to-back six-minute miles, you are sorely mistaken.
Gilean 01-09-05, 11:09 AM	Must...roll...dice... :dice: :dice: :dice: :dice: :dice: :dice:
Cantankerous 01-09-05, 11:17 AM	You're squirming. And you're just sore because I, unlike you, backed up my assertions with links to relevant real-life examples, and made you feel like you had egg on your face. Its ok, I'm not very good at swallowing my pride either, but I think its time to put this one to bed. By your logic, the competitors in those "World's Strongest Man" contests should all be top-notch marathon runners. If you think for one moment that guys with muscle mass like that can run back-to-back six-minute miles, you are sorely mistaken. Wishful thinking. Would you like me to pull quotes from the very pages you linked in? YOU didn't read your own articles. You scanned them and poorly at that. I didn't have to disprove you. You disproved yourself. And no, Worlds Strongest man competitors do not need to be marathoners... although I can all but garuantee you that unless YOU are that most of them could hike you into the ground before they started getting tired. High strength is another part of the stamina equation. The extra muscle mass makes running doubly stressful, but long distance hiking say, is realtively unaffected by high muscle mass. I was a US Marine who all but lived in the gym during my first tour. During that period I weighed in at almost 210 lbs and had almost zero unused fat tissue. I benched 415 (not going to get me anywhere near WSM standards, but hey, it's far from shabby) as an average and did the 3 miles cross country that was part of the PFT in under 18 minutes more than once, played football in high school and one season in college, and ran track in high school... and have a congenital heart arithmia. I KNOW what I'm talking about. It more sounds to me like yours is the sour grapes. I pulled relavent quotes from the game, from the RAW, while you pulled out newspaper articles that you never bothered to do anything but scan the titles of. Isshia
aaron3579 01-09-05, 11:31 AM	Wishful thinking. Would you like me to pull quotes from the very pages you linked in? YOU didn't read your own articles. You scanned them and poorly at that. I didn't have to disprove you. You disproved yourself. And no, Worlds Strongest man competitors do not need to be marathoners... although I can all but garuantee you that unless YOU are that most of them could hike you into the ground before they started getting tired. High strength is another part of the stamina equation. The extra muscle mass makes running doubly stressful, but long distance hiking say, is realtively unaffected by high muscle mass. I was a US Marine who all but lived in the gym during my first tour. During that period I weighed in at almost 210 lbs and had almost zero unused fat tissue. I benched 415 (not going to get me anywhere near WSM standards, but hey, it's far from shabby) as an average and did the 3 miles cross country that was part of the PFT in under 18 minutes more than once, played football in high school and one season in college, and ran track in high school... and have a congenital heart arithmia. I KNOW what I'm talking about. It more sounds to me like yours is the sour grapes. I pulled relavent quotes from the game, from the RAW, while you pulled out newspaper articles that you never bothered to do anything but scan the titles of. Isshia Are you threatening me with violence? If so: Natchitoches, Louisiana 312 Second Street Apartment 42. I'll be home Monday @ 6:00 PM central time. Are you expecting that b/c you were a Marine, I'm going to lower my eyes and say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in the military."??? I may not jump out of planes or bench 415, but I proudly serve my country as a National Guardsman, AND pass my PT test. So no, that’s not going to happen either. Your natural defense mechanism: "When I can't win an argument, tell them I was in the military, and that I benched 415. Also, insult their physical condition." post script: please don't pull rank, I'm only an E-4. :surrender
Cantankerous 01-10-05, 02:27 AM	Are you on drugs? In what way, manner, or form did anyone threaten anything? Or is this another lame and insipid attempt at distraction by confusion? I simply stated, very clearly, that you obviously didn't read your source material and jumped to conclusions that were disproven by the source material itself. Which it was. I brought up myself as an example because I am a living refutiation of your statement. I've been healthy my whole life long. I went a stretch of eleven years at one point without missing so much as a single day of work due to illness. On my 40th birthday I hiked two men who were not much more than half my age, who were actively in the military, into the ground in the lower Alps. I'm not in the shape physicly now that I was when I was in the Marines. I bench a touch less than 300 nowdays and couldn't do 3 miles in under 20 minutes on a track anymore, much less cross country, but I'm still ALMOST never sick and still have tremendous stamina, which according to the RAW is a major component of what is determined by Constitution. And I have the same type of heart arithmia that has dropped professional athletes in their tracks, including Marathoners. That is a genetic flaw, not a reflection on the persons state of health, which is the other thing besides stamina that the RAW says that Constitution is a measure of. Far from "threatening you", I've simply said that your statement was wrong. Period. Now, would you like to look at your own actions? Twice you've been called on YOUR own posted sources and both times you've tried to wiggle off by launching idiotic personal attacks. THAT may be your style, but until you made it personal, it was not mine. I attacked your ideas and your statements, not you. Get a clue bub. Isshia
Palin the Wizard 01-10-05, 03:30 AM	Cantankerous, I'm going to assume you missed my previous post, and that you didn't ignore it on purpose.
Cantankerous 01-10-05, 03:18 PM	Cantankerous, I'm going to assume you missed my previous post, and that you didn't ignore it on purpose. Sorry Palin, I did miss it. I disagree with you, for the reasons in my last post on the subject. It isn't EVERY facet of your health. It is "your health" an over all thing, not a singular part of it. Again, I have the self same heart arihmia and am in better general health than any other person of my age that I know. Far and away better health than the great majority of them. I've had one real cold in the last decade. Other than broken bones and various such like non-sense from thinking I'm a better mountain climber than I am I haven't met ten people among the masses of mountain climbing enthusiasts that I know that can take the cold better, or push on harder or for longer than I do. That is among people my age and younger... sometimes decades younger. If I were to be rendered into the game mechanic the single highest stat, easily, that I would have, would be Constitution. Stamina has nothing to do with resistance to disease and various other sickness. That IS pure "healthiness" and I doubt that there are too many people that can match me there. Go swimming in a mountain lake in early November in the southern Alps and then just towel off and jump into the sleeping bag and see if you don't catch a hell of a cold. The other six people along on the particular trip in question that did it (who were silly enough to follow me into the lake, my wife refrained, she knows better) ALL caught colds and all of these people were in really good shape and with really obviously above average constitutions. I got a light case of the sniffles that I had walked out by the next noon. The heart arithmia, I still maintain, is ONLY a singular flaw. It does NOT effect the overall person and several athletes never even know they have it until it simply strikes. I didn't. The thing is that using that single side issue that will very probably never come up to deny a higher constitution would be like denying Lou Ferrigno a high strength rating because he couldn't do squats worth a damned. The man was an absolute BULL in every other manner, not just a body builder, but one of the strongest men in the world in his prime. Aaron (I think) brought up the Worlds Strongest Man competitions. Old Lou, already past his prime by a fair bit, competed in some of the first, along side men like Bill Munday and Conrad Dobbler and eeeyow, seeing him pick up the back end of a VW micro bus loaded with cement bags that almost burst Dobbler's neck like it was a light bar flamin' stunned me. Even on TV it looked impressive. He even had Munday shaking his head like he'd seen the impossible. But the guy couldn't do squats that I could do in my prime. It was unreal. This is the same sort of thing, but less identifiable even, with the person with the heart arithmia, but it can't be measured without machines.... except in the tragic FEW cases where it crops up. Isshia
Palin the Wizard 01-11-05, 01:16 AM	I think you misunderstand me... I know that it is just a single flaw. But the D&D mechanics is not capable of showing that. It can only take the average of all the aspects of the stat, due to the nature of the mechanics. As I said before, if you want to represent the individual aspects, you would have to create a new stat specifically for each. Thus, the only way you can accurately gauge a heart disease (or a different illness), would be to gauge what that single aspect would be (if it was a stat of its own) and then take the average of them all, and let *that* be your Con. If you have, say, five aspects, and one of them is extremely low (because of a weak heart, perhaps) then you might end up with a 7 even if all the rest of the aspects are average.
aaron3579 01-11-05, 03:41 AM	I attacked your ideas and your statements, not you. Get a clue bub. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Why so funny? Because in the post that came right before that, you said: And no, Worlds Strongest man competitors do not need to be marathoners... although I can all but guarantee you that unless YOU are that most of them could hike you into the ground before they started getting tired. Now you know that despite your best efforts to "have me pegged" for the more typical role-player, (no offense to typical role-players) you turned out to be dead wrong. You got mad and posted something foolish. Case closed. Are you on drugs? Am I on drugs? Well, if what you mean to ask is am I crazy…. Yea, I’m as crazy as they come. If you are suggesting that I actually take drugs, then the answer is no, sorry to disappoint (I am one semester away from a bachelor’s in criminal justice, and getting caught with drugs just wouldn't do). Far from "threatening you", I've simply said that your statement was wrong. Period. [honestly not sarcastic]You display superb knowledge of the English language through your ability to "write in between the lines." I would be willing to bet that you were the most intelligent marine in your platoon. Probably even your company. And even now, you are probably among one of the sharper knives in the drawer within the circles that you frequent. This is what leads me to suspect that you did not count on me picking up on what you were REALLY trying to say. Heck, its probably become so natural for you now that you may not have even realized you were doing it yourself. Right about now, you may be asking yourself, "What the hell is this clown talking about?" Witness. most of them could hike you into the ground before they started getting tired...[filler text deleted] I was a US Marine who all but lived in the gym during my first tour. During that period I weighed in at almost 210 lbs and had almost zero unused fat tissue. I benched 415... See? First you insult MY physical condition, then you call attention to the fact that "You were a Marine, and benched four fifteen." (Hey, mayhap I could fashion a limerick?) If you intended no physical threat there, it sure sounded like it to me. This method of writing is extremely effective when employed against a person of average intelligence: They become offended and intimidated, and yet they are unable to put their finger on exactly what offended and intimidated them. Being thus provoked, they become angry and say things they don't mean. What you forgot to consider was where you were exercising this normally effective technique. This is a forum dedicated to DUNGEON MASTERS, and a basic requirement of DMing is an above average intelligence. Aside from studying criminal justice, I also tutor English for extra cash. One thing I tell people is to ALWAYS consider the audience being addressed. You apparently have forgotten to do that, not because you are a poor writer, but because you are not used to people standing up to you. I will not be bullied. Lets move on to the second covert physical threat that you made. Armed with the knowledge of my status as a part-time soldier, you stated: On my 40th birthday I hiked two men who were not much more than half my age, who were actively in the military, into the ground in the lower Alps. I'm not in the shape physicly now that I was when I was in the Marines. I bench a touch less than 300 nowdays You open with the acknowledgement of the fact that you are 'over the hill' (Get it? Alps, 40th birthday... oh I kill myself sometimes) It is important for you to do this because of how you analyzed my thought process. Your thoughts may have been something to the effect of, "This pipsqueak thinks that because I'm no longer in the Marines, I must be old and flabby. Why else would he be willing to stand against my superior intellect? I'll show him." So first you admit that you are old, and then you go on to say that "I hiked two men who were not much more than half my age, who were actively in the military, into the ground..." This statement acts as a double-edged sword. The first edge serves to warn me that just because I am a young buck, you can still take me; the other edge serves to insult the National Guard, the key word to this second edge being ACTIVELY. Its clear that although National guardsmen are dying today in Iraq, (side by side with Marines) you don't think they are as worthy of respect as the Active Duty Marine Corps. Then you go on to state that you can still bench nearly 300 pounds. Guess what? I don't care about how much you can bench, and I wont be dragged into such a superficial testosterone contest. It sounds to me like you may be having a mid-life crisis. Why else would a 40+ year old Marine get so riled up over being insulted by a punk kid over the internet? And regarding Dungeons and Dragons, no less. Now on to the meat and potatoes. And gravy. White gravy. This was all started because I said that a weak heart condition reflected poorly on a character's constitution score. You said that it didn't, and held yourself up as living proof. Palin now says "As I said before, if you want to represent the individual aspects, you would have to create a new stat specifically for each." I propose to invert this statement into a question: If a weak heart doesn't reflect poorly on a person's CON, then how is such a condition represented within the rules of D&D? Allow me to quote from the 2e PHB. "A character's Constitution score encompasses his physique, fitness, health, and physical resistance to hardship, injury, and disease." If a heart condition doesn't fall under the category of health problem, then where would you, oh esteemed one, place it instead? In regards to starfire311’s assertion that “When I begin a character they generally all start with all the quirks, vices, fears, and hates they will ever have. For most people these are developed during the adolescent and early adult years and all of my characters start at a human age equivalent of 16-24 well after all of these traits are normally acquired. So if I wanted to role-play through the acquisition of these traits I will have to begin at oh age 0. This can make for an interesting game every once in awhile, but I can't imagine doing it every time.” I will quote from the 2e DMG. “If at all possible, start characters at 1st level. The lowest character levels are like the early years of childhood. What happens to a character during these first adventures will do much to determine how that character will be role-played.” (Pg. 32) Again, not gospel, but that’s what convinced me that starting at first level is always a good idea.
Cantankerous 01-11-05, 06:15 AM	Aaron, you've got issues. I said that a Worlds Strongest competitor could probably hike you into the ground. The stamina of those men are such that they can most likely hike damn near anyone into the ground, all other things being equal. How that insults you is anybody's guess. Unless you have such a fragile opinion of yourself that being infavorably compared to some of the foremost athletes on the planet as an insult, I still don't see it. Sometimes reading between the lines is reading things into a statement that were not there. It's called lack of self perception. Now, we ALL (before you go off feeling persecuted again) do that from time to time, from the highest to the lowest, yourself and myself included. You might THINK you have all the answers, but I would guess as you grow a bit older you'll find that you are wrong as often as you are right when you ascribe particular motivations to another persons actions... when you try to read between the lines what was meant instead of what was said. As I said to you THAT may be your style, but until you made it personal, it was not mine. . Once you had specificly attacked ME You're squirming. And you're just sore because I, unlike you, backed up my assertions with links to relevant real-life examples, and made you feel like you had egg on your face. I was cool with it. Not reading between your lines there bub, I am reading your lines. Once you decided to make it personal I decided to respond to it. Sooo, my saying that you were probably not a World Class Athlete was an insult and that I was, in my youth, able to bench a good amount, (but one that wouldn't have gotten me much interest in any NFL camp more less on a world wide scale) that was a threat? Man, you must be one of those who feels "threatened" when someone passes you on the freeway. That's just a guess, but it sure DOES seem that way to me from reading between your lines. What is it that you have to prove anyway? Gee, I'll post my adress and look macho, even though the guy lives half a world away. Yeesh! I haven't seen that kind of display of computer testosterone outside of high school students. I brought up the self examples though because I do not have a degree in medicine to back up my statements. What I DO have is a good (I feel) reason to state firmly that I might have a certain degree of practical understanding of the issue in question because of personal experience. Indicating why I think that explains why it might be a valid opinion. Whether the individual reader sees it as valid or not is then up to them. You too have quite a command of language and seem unusually bright, if more than a touch condescending yourself. And yeah, that is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, but I'm aware of my tendency to condescend... are you? Isshia
aaron3579 01-11-05, 05:43 PM	Tsk tsk, you didn't even TOUCH your meat and potatoes, and now they've grown cold. Well, I suppose I DID leave you with alot on your plate... so I'll just keep the issue warm for you. But in the mean-time... Unless you have such a fragile opinion of yourself that being infavorably compared to some of the foremost athletes on the planet as an insult, I still don't see it. Sometimes reading between the lines is reading things into a statement that were not there. It's called lack of self perception. I was expecting you to challenge the validity of the argument that I made regarding your physical threats, and I am prepared to offer a case in support of my claim, as the burden of proof would rest on my shoulders. Because such a squabble would hypothetically be handled in civil as opposed to criminal court, (this would be considered a tort, not a crime) the level of evidence required is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but rather a preponderance of the evidence. Although this case is far from open and shut, I could make a pretty good showing. [I'm not threatening you with a civil suit, just with another post.] But I don't want to have to prove you wrong, because you also did something unexpected. You extended (grudgingly) an olive-branch: You too have quite a command of language and seem unusually bright, if more than a touch condescending yourself. And yeah, that is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, but I'm aware of my tendency to condescend... are you? And I am tempted to take it. But before we sign this armistice, let me be VERY CLEAR as to what, exactly, I am not conceding: 1: I will not concede that the act of proving to someone that you are not afraid of them can be categorized as "a display of computer testosterone." Refusing to be intimidated simply displays a lack of cowardice, nothing more. 2: I will not concede that heart disease can be represented in a D&D universe with anything other than an abysmal CON score. As I stated before, we have a fundamental difference of opinion, and it won't do any good to argue about it. As for the concessions that I am willing to grant: 1: I admit that I have an abrasive, condescending writing style. The insults that I offer are overt not because I am impolite, but because I would rather not insult your intelligence by insinuating that you are incapable of reading between the lines. 2: I will give you the benefit of the doubt concerning the alleged threats of physical violence. 3: I wish to apologize for concluding that you are having a mid-life crisis. Just because I can get into somebody's head, doesn't mean that I should, and it certainly doesn't mean that my conclusions are accurate. If we are unable to reach an accord, I'm happy to go round and round once more, but I think we've said everything that needs saying at least twice. [Extends hand]
The Man from Uncle 01-11-05, 11:32 PM	Aaron, you write 'extends hand', but it reads 'Bends over and grits teeth'. For a man who will soon leave the world of plebs (all be it with a vocational subject (and Law at that)) you really have allowed yourself to be walked over. As for you Cantankerous, do not conceed the heart condition point unless you make absolutly clear what level of disease he is talking about. Constituition as defined by health only, leaves out a huge number of athletic types who can do the triathlon, but have damaged their body beyond repair with drugs in the process. They can have less than 10 years in them but still appear like superman.
aaron3579 01-12-05, 02:45 AM	Aaron, you write 'extends hand', but it reads 'Bends over and grits teeth'. For a man who will soon leave the world of plebs (all be it with a vocational subject (and Law at that)) you really have allowed yourself to be walked over. If there is anyone else that has read the exchange between Cantankerous and myself in its entirety and believes this statement to be true, then I will agree with you and strive to be even more shrewd in the future.
Cantankerous 01-12-05, 07:00 AM	Aaron, you not good at this. Mummery, whether it takes the form of legalistic jargon that has no meaning, and this certainly doesn't, or by pseudo-psychology is usually obvious to anyone who stops to think for a moment. Maybe someone else WILL chime in later. Maybe not, but if anybody else is wasting their time reading this they may well agree with MfU. We've been disagreeing, he and I, in this post from the get go, yet his positions were atleast stated without rancor, and were enjoyable challenges to respond to... this on the other hand is becoming tedious. If this WAS an attempt to "extend an olive branch" and nothing from my post was, I assure you, it was poorly worded and ill considered. When one extends his hand he doesn't usually have a poorly hidden joy buzzer in it. Isshia
MonkeyKing 01-12-05, 07:18 AM	Aaron, you write 'extends hand', but it reads 'Bends over and grits teeth'. For a man who will soon leave the world of plebs (all be it with a vocational subject (and Law at that)) you really have allowed yourself to be walked over. If there is anyone else that has read the exchange between Cantankerous and myself in its entirety and believes this statement to be true, then I will agree with you and, resolve myself to be even more shrewd in the future. I usually don't make a habit of agreeing with anything Uncle has to say, it makes me feel dirty, however on this occasion and having fully read the referenced exchange, I feel his comments to be right on the money. *walks over to Uncle and gives him the ol' nudge, nudge, wink, wink...*
The Shaman 01-12-05, 12:45 PM	I stopped following this thread about four pages ago, but I decided to rearead it this morning while the coffee was brewing and I noticed something that stuck a chord. If you'll permit me to get away from the CON discussion for a moment and start a slightly different tangent from the original thread... I let the players decide their power level. standard 4d6, re-roll until you get a set you like, 38, 40, 42 point buy, hell, even 48... Whatever they like. After all, the game is for THEIR fun, right? As much as it is for mine. And as for MY fun, I can make anything I want to fight them, can't I? :) I've heard this sentiment expressed by posters before, and I don't agree that it is the "players" game - it's a shared process, but given that the overwhelming preponderance of the work necessary to play the game is carried on the GM's (hopefully brawny) shoulders, it's reasonable for the GM to set limits, IMHO. As a GM I don't see my role as setting up paper targets for the players' characters to knock over - my responsibility is to create a world with which the players interact. ShadowDragon8685 suggests that powerful player characters are not a problem since the GM can scale the encounters to match them. This is true. But the GM can also scale encounters to 28-point, 25-point, or even 15-point buy characters as well - with a pair of regular ol' goblins I can make a party of 32-point buy 2nd level characters soil themselves if I choose - so to me that isn't a terribly strong argument, IMHX. This plays into something else I've noticed over the years: GMs who throw big stats, lots of levels, and bonus feats to players so that the GM can run more powerful monsters right from the start. I did it when I first started playing - dropping a type VI demon (that's a balor to you youngsters) on a party of somewhere around 5th level, just 'cause I had a cool mini. I don't think this reflects poor GMing skills necessarily, rather it's an impatience to "get on with it," which is reflected here in the second quote... Never wanted to play, say, Aragorn, did you? A lot of us are sick of humdrum, ordinary stated people. Most of us are those people with ordinary stats, and the only stat we can realistically raise in a reasonable time (Strength) takes quite a lot willpower, which we usually lack. We want to be a hero, and we want to go out and be a hero now damnit! To fritters with that "not having any score above a 16." I want an 18 score. I want to be an elf (with a 20 after racial ajustment) who's speed is legend, even amongst elves, or a wizard of mind-bending inteligence, or a man with the strength to lift a whole cart so the farmer can put the wheel back on. Another thing I've observed over the years is that some players like to create a character as a relative novice and watch the character gain power and ability, and others want their characters to be great heros straight out of the gate. I think the latter group tends to outnumber the former, or perhaps that's just my experience, but either way it leads to the same point: Aragorn didn't start out being Aragorn, if you follow my meaning. If your idea of fun in roleplaying is starting with a character that is merely head-and-shoulder above the rest of the madding crowd and grows to meet challenges over the course of time/the game, then 25- or 28-point buy characters make sense. If you want to start out towering astride others like a colossus, then the sky's the limit. Maybe impatience isn't the right word necessarily to describe it, but it's what I have in my vocabulary box at the moment so I'll stick with it. Players impatient to reach the heights of their abilities often want big stats - and I'd be willing to bet that in many, though not all, cases also want +LA races, lots of starting levels, multiple PrCs, and flaws for extra feats in order to create their character concept. Put another way, they want to start as Conan or Elric or Drizzt as they appear in the novels, not as they appeared on their "first adventures." Personally I like the journey more than the destination. I created my character background for a PbP D&D game I joined the other day - it's just a short story of how he gained his divine spellcasting ability and his general motivation for adventure. I don't have any idea what he will become - I will learn that over the course of the game, if he is to become Aragorn, or if he is to become Mablung. That is what's fun for me as a player, and that's what I encourage my players to do in the games I run - a player who wants to start out as colossus should probably look for a different GM, 'cause s/he probably isn't interested in buying what I'm selling. Now excuse me, as I have to go roll my stats and work on his mechanics... :P
aaron3579 01-13-05, 02:04 AM	this on the other hand is becoming tedious. Then why didn't you accept my offer of mercy rather than call my bluff? It was a generous offer to agree to disagree, but you want to fight some more. Q:What are you going to do, bleed on me? A:Come on, ya pansie! I'll naw your ankles off! Aaron, you not good at this. Mummery, whether it takes the form of legalistic jargon that has no meaning, and this certainly doesn't, or by pseudo-psychology is usually obvious to anyone who stops to think for a moment. I apologize for speaking over your head. It was not my intent. Allow me to define some of the more difficult terms for you: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: adj. part of jury instructions in all criminal trials, in which the jurors are told that they can only find the defendant guilty if they are convinced "beyond a reason- able doubt" of his or her guilt. Sometimes referred to as "to a moral certainty," the phrase is fraught with uncertainty as to meaning, but try: "you better be damned sure." By comparison it is meant to be a tougher standard than "preponderance of the evidence," used as a test to give judgment to a plaintiff in a civil (non-criminal) case. Burden of proof: n. the requirement that the plaintiff (the party bringing a civil lawsuit) show by a "preponderance of evidence" or "weight of evidence" that all the facts necessary to win a judgment are presented and are probably true. In a criminal trial the burden of proof required of the prosecutor is to prove the guilt of the accused "beyond a reasonable doubt," a much more difficult task. Unless there is a complete failure to present substantial evidence of a vital fact (usually called an "element of the cause of action"), the ultimate decision as to whether the plaintiff has met his/her burden of proof rests with the jury or the judge if there is no jury. However, the burden of proof is not always on the plaintiff. In some issues it may shift to the defendant if he/she raises a factual issue in defense, such as a claim that he/she was not the registered owner of the car that hit the plaintiff, so the defendant has the burden to prove that defense. If at the close of the plaintiff's presentation he/she has not produced any evidence on a necessary fact (e.g. any evidence of damage) then the case may be dismissed without the defendant having to put on any evidence. Civil: adj. that part of the law that encompasses business, contracts, estates, domestic (family) relations, accidents, negligence and everything related to legal issues, statutes and lawsuits, that is not criminal law. In a few areas civil and criminal law may overlap or coincide. For example, a person may be liable under a civil lawsuit for negligently killing a pedestrian with his auto by running over the person and be charged with the crime of vehicular homicide due to his/her reckless driving. Assault may bring about arrest by the police under criminal law and a lawsuit by the party attacked under civil law. Criminal law: n. those statutes dealing with crimes against the public and members of the public, with penalties and all the procedures connected with charging, trying, sentencing and imprisoning defendants convicted of crimes. Preponderance of the evidence: n. the greater weight of the evidence required in a civil (non-criminal) lawsuit for the tier of fact (jury or judge without a jury) to decide in favor of one side or the other. This preponderance is based on the more convincing evidence and its probable truth or accuracy, and not on the amount of evidence. Thus, one clearly knowledgeable witness may provide a preponderance of evidence over a dozen witnesses with hazy testimony, or a signed agreement with definite terms may outweigh opinions or speculation about what the parties intended. Preponderance of the evidence is required in a civil case and is contrasted with "beyond a reasonable doubt," which is the more severe test of evidence required to convict in a criminal trial. No matter what the definition stated in various legal opinions, the meaning is somewhat subjective. Tort: n. from French for "wrong," a civil wrong or wrongful act, whether intentional or accidental, from which injury occurs to another. Torts include all negligence cases as well as intentional wrongs which result in harm. Therefore tort law is one of the major areas of law (along with contract, real property and criminal law) and results in more civil litigation than any other category. Some intentional torts may also be crimes, such as assault, battery, wrongful death, fraud, conversion (a euphemism for theft) and trespass on property and form the basis for a lawsuit for damages by the injured party. Defamation, including intentionally telling harmful untruths about another-either by print or broadcast (libel) or orally (slander)-is a tort and used to be a crime as well. Now that we are on the same sheet of music, let’s examine what each of our respective claims are. I am claiming that you threatened me with bodily injury, and your primary defense to this allegation is that the alleged threatening statements were merely made to help strengthen a point you were trying to make. By this rationale, your point should be weakened if your statement were to be re-issued without the alleged threat included. Your entire contention read as follows: And no, Worlds Strongest man competitors do not need to be marathoners... although I can all but guarantee you that unless YOU are that most of them could hike you into the ground before they started getting tired. High strength is another part of the stamina equation. The extra muscle mass makes running doubly stressful, but long distance hiking say, is relatively unaffected by high muscle mass. I was a US Marine who all but lived in the gym during my first tour. During that period I weighed in at almost 210 lbs and had almost zero unused fat tissue. I benched 415 (not going to get me anywhere near WSM standards, but hey, it's far from shabby) as an average and did the 3 miles cross country that was part of the PFT in under 18 minutes more than once, played football in high school and one season in college, and ran track in high school... and have a congenital heart arithmia. I KNOW what I'm talking about. [For starters, its spelled ‘arrhythmia.’ Maybe you DIDN’T know what you were talking about.] Your claim is that this statement, as delivered, was only meant to prove your point that people that are exceptionally strong (you) and in good general health can be afflicted with heart disease and still posses the basic components of a high constitution score. The exact statements that I claim to contain a double meaning were: “Worlds Strongest man competitors do not need to be marathoners... although I can all but guarantee you that unless YOU are that most of them could hike you into the ground before they started getting tired. I was a US Marine who all but lived in the gym during my first tour. During that period I weighed in at almost 210 lbs and had almost zero unused fat tissue. I benched 415…” So here is the lynchpin: If I can show that your point is just as strong with these statements included as without, logical examination concludes that you had some ulterior motive for including them, i.e. intimidation through threat of physical violence. We’ve already heard your argument with the alleged threat included. Now lets here it with more moderate statements inserted in their stead: “And no, Worlds Strongest man competitors do not need to be marathoners... although I can guarantee you they can hike average people into the ground before becoming winded. High strength is another part of the stamina equation. The extra muscle mass makes running doubly stressful, but long distance hiking say, is relatively unaffected by high muscle mass. When in my prime, I weighed in at almost 210 lbs and had almost zero unused fat tissue. I benched 415 (not going to get me anywhere near WSM standards, but hey, it's far from shabby) as an average and did the 3 miles cross country in under 18 minutes more than once, played football in high school and one season in college, and ran track in high school... and have a congenital heart arrhythmia. I KNOW what I'm talking about.” I submit that the above statement is just as convincing as the one that you originally submitted, and therefore conclude that you had no other reason to include the statements in question aside from making me feel threatened. Now we’ll move on to intent. I have already proven that a physical threat existed. Your argument now may be that you did not intend to threaten, or that you did so sub-consciously. Consider the average case of sexual harassment. Statistically, when such a case is brought to trial, the defendant’s argument is that he did not intend to offend the plaintiff. But this defense is faulty, for in the law’s eyes such an offense is considered as such based on whether or not a ‘reasonable person’ would have felt as if they were being harassed. The same logic can be applied to the case at hand. Whether you intended to or not, you offered a physical threat, and I expect an apology. (Although to expect one from a man who doesn't know when to quit is foolhardy at best) The fact of the matter is that you are a skilled debater that lost, not because you failed to present your case in a logical manner, but because the point that you were defending was a lost cause. Follow my logic on this one, its simple: If A = B and B = C, then we can conclude that A = C. So, if CON encompasses health and a heart condition is classified as a health problem, then we can conclude that a heart problem equals a CON problem. This may or may not hold true in the real world, but in the Dungeons and Dragons universe (unless you propose to change the rules) this is how it must be. I never bluff. Aaron
Palin the Wizard 01-13-05, 04:53 AM	Aaron, just drop it. He didn't threaten you with physical harm. He stated what he was, nothing more. If you presume that to mean he's threatening you, I'm afraid you are rather paranoid.
crazysamaritan 01-13-05, 06:49 AM	...
Cantankerous 01-13-05, 08:51 AM	You never bluff, you also don't follow through with what you have to say. You know, you said: If there is anyone else that has read the exchange between Cantankerous and myself in its entirety and believes this statement to be true, then I will agree with you and, resolve myself to be even more shrewd in the future. Did you agree with Uncle after saying that you would, and after not one but two other posters, neither of which have been agreeing with much that I've had to say, agreed that you're wrong on your point of "being threatened"? No. You did not. That would have taken a tiny modicum of self respect, instead of flatulent self aggrandizement, because it would have been admitting your were wrong and moved on. Instead, you're back at it. Poorly again, making an ass of yourself by trying to come across as pendantic when you're simply coming across (as am I in this instance, but I WILL admit to it) as petty. Chuckles, you didn't prove anything. You were wrong. The preponderance of opinion states that quite clearly. Let it go and move on... or don't and continue to look like an imbecile... I'll just keep cutting and pasting this part to respond to any further of your inanities. I have a feeling that you are going to starve as a lawyer if this is the best that you can do. When a point has been taken, conceed it and step away, or you'll be succesfully villified (by your own actions more than by the responses of your opponent) OFTEN in any debate and once villified your points loose alot of their sympathy and appeal. I've never taken advanced Law courses, but your inept attempt to turn this into a legalist session instead of the discussion of differeing ideologies that it is so far beyond simple mummery that persistence in it REALLY makes you appear as though you have nothing to say. When your doctor tells you that the reason you collapsed during the first five minutes of a pick up basketball game when you are an avid cross country runner and general all around athlete, in extremely good physical shape and physical health, is that you have an arithmia, you do not then go look up the spelling and commit it to memory. You ask him and other physicians about it, what the consequences are, what you can and shouldn't do and then you go back about your life, adding that information to your self matrix. What you do not do is obsess over it. If you do then you genrally stop being the kind of pushing, self challenging person that I like being and want to continue to be and become timid and if it goes too far you may even become hypocondriacal about something that might never again strike at you during any point in your life. The only thing that you've been absolutely right about so far is that I did mis-spell arithmia. As I said, I felt that I could speak to it because of my PERSONAL experience with it. I in no way intimated any great knowledge of it over all... just what I've been told by the physicians I've talked to, as it relates to athletes. Isshia
aaron3579 01-13-05, 02:55 PM	I've never taken advanced Law courses, but your inept attempt to turn this into a legalist session instead of the discussion of differeing ideologies that it is so far beyond simple mummery that persistence in it REALLY makes you appear as though you have nothing to say. I’m not suggesting that an Internet forum should be treated like a courtroom. However, proving or disproving an allegation in the manner that I did is the best method that the United States court system has discovered thus far, and if it’s good enough for them, then it’s good enough for me. You, on the other hand seem to think that the best way to win an argument is through intimidation and mud slinging. Your postulation that I will starve as a lawyer is an interesting attempt to make me angry, but I have to say that you are wrong on that one; I’m just way too damned sexy. Getting mad and posting something that you don’t mean is a mistake made by amateurs and meatheads. I am neither. BTW, that word mummery. I had to look that one up because I had never seen it before. Good word. (seriously) [adds information to self matrix] Thanks. When your doctor tells you that the reason you collapsed during the first five minutes of a pick up basketball game when you are an avid cross country runner and general all around athlete, in extremely good physical shape and physical health, is that you have an arithmia, you do not then go look up the spelling and commit it to memory. You ask him and other physicians about it, what the consequences are, what you can and shouldn't do and then you go back about your life, adding that information to your self matrix. What you do not do is obsess over it. If you do then you genrally stop being the kind of pushing, self challenging person that I like being and want to continue to be and become timid and if it goes too far you may even become hypocondriacal about something that might never again strike at you during any point in your life. The only thing that you've been absolutely right about so far is that I did mis-spell arithmia. As I said, I felt that I could speak to it because of my PERSONAL experience with it. I in no way intimated any great knowledge of it over all... just what I've been told by the physicians I've talked to, as it relates to athletes. Your continued misspelling of the word arrhythmia only helps to prove my accusation that you are hardheaded and over-proud. So you had a lousy childhood. This gives you an excuse to misspell your own heart condition why? Surely you can see how this greatly diminishes your creditability when you attempt to present yourself as an authority on the subject. As for me, if I had a serious heart condition, I think that I would (call me crazy) do some PERSONAL RESEARCH on the topic rather than simply accept someone else’s opinion on the issue, M.D. or no. You too have quite a command of language and seem unusually bright, if more than a touch condescending yourself. And yeah, that is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, but I'm aware of my tendency to condescend... are you? Chuckles, you didn't prove anything. You were wrong. The preponderance of opinion states that quite clearly. Let it go and move on... or don't and continue to look like an imbecile... I'll just keep cutting and pasting this part to respond to any further of your inanities. For a man of such strong convictions, you do seem to change your mind a lot… First, I did say that it would not be an open and shut case. And in an adversarial court system, one must always operate under the guise of infallibility. For this matter to truly be settled, we would need a neutral third party, and on an Internet forum, this is an impossibility. I said that I could make a strong case, and I have. Whether or not I would have actually won is a matter of opinion. So I’ve vilified myself. So what? I would rather be correct than admired. And smugness is always preferable to blind stupidity. Anyway, I gave you two opportunities to drop this argument and go on about your life on this forum with dignity (SEE posts 167 and 181). Now I'm going to grind your credibility into the dust. As for what I propose to copy and paste: If A = B and B = C, then we can conclude that A = C. So, if CON encompasses health and a heart condition is classified as a health problem, then we can conclude that a heart problem equals a CON problem. This may or may not hold true in the real world, but in the Dungeons and Dragons universe (unless you propose to change the rules) this is how it must be. This I will repeat until you either explicitly concede this point, disprove this point, or at the very least, cease to attack me.
artman 01-14-05, 12:19 AM	Having read this thread in its totality I have two major points and soem minor ones as well. 1) Someone owes me an hour of my life back. I'm looking towards aaron on this one... 2) This argument is petty and immature. No matter what layers of jargon you wish to put on it it can be simply summed up witht he words, "WHAT DOES IT MATTER?" (Do the all caps moments make me look smarter? :P ) Cantankerous: I feel that you are right. One can be in perfectly good health, high Con, and still have a major health defect. Not only heart disease but many other things can show this. Off the top of my head I am thinking about diabetes or Parkinson's. Each o these is a serious health problem that does not increase your chances of getting hurt or getting sicker. Now, if the character has AIDS they will see a Con drop, but that is not the real topic hear. The fact is that a high base Con states nothing about existing health conditions. aaron: If you are still young, younger than 21, then good, you are on the right track. you sound like a youth. You arue like one. That is not bad if you are one. If you are older than 21 and have no medical or religious reasons not to do so, please have an adult beverage. Then, come back and start debating like an adult. This really goes for everyone on the boards. It is childish to argue your point by nit-picking someone else's spelling or grammar. If this is the nit you wish to pick, please do it to your own posts first. Trust me, you had some slips, as I know I do. It is also childish to infer a threat of physical violence when clearly none was implied. It just looks like an attempt to get the other poster banned. If you are really champing at the bit to point out threats of physical violence try to find some real ones first.
aaron3579 01-14-05, 12:50 AM	Thanks, I think my esteemed opponent was feeling lonely. ;) J/K, I'll be nice. One can be in perfectly good health, high Con, and still have a major health defect. Not only heart disease but many other things can show this. Off the top of my head I am thinking about diabetes or Parkinson's. Each o these is a serious health problem that does not increase your chances of getting hurt or getting sicker. How would you propose to represent such a major defect in-game? BTW, could you please point out my slips (barring capitalization and sentence fragment issues)? I KNOW they're there b/c I don't have anyone proof-reading me. I absolutely LOATHE grammatical errors, (as evidenced by my edit times) especially my own, and I will edit any and all that anyone will point out for me. This isn't a challenge implying that I have no errors; I just really want to know which ones you're talking about. I know this is just an Internet forum, but what can I say, I'm obsessive-compulsive (and a little crazy). Indulge me. PLEASE. Hey, what do you know, the caps DO make me look smarter. :)
starfire311 01-14-05, 09:08 AM	How would you propose to represent such a major defect in-game? The same way you would represent any disease. You would decide what that disease does and what the affect of it is. Even having mummy doesnt change your Con score(it does damage to your Con), but doesnt change it. And what the heck does a Disease have to do with 25 point buy vs 28 point buy. Im starting a new game soon and thus far have told the players to use the point buy method outlined in the DMG. In there it says to use 25 points as a starting pool, but I've also seen may posts here that refer to a 28 point buy. It seems almost to have become standard. I wanted to ask ya'll other DMs if they have an opinion on this. Is the extra 3 points too much? too little? Ive looked over some of my players PC's and they are definatly weaker than your aveage PC, at least at my table. That, however, may be good for the game. Still, i like the players to feel that they are better than Joe Average. They are heroes, after all. So, where do most of you land on this issue? Since I assume the OP has long stopped even paying attention to this post, can we just let it die. This has been going on so long that his game that was going to start soon is probably already over.
WizO_TheCheat 01-14-05, 09:56 AM	It looks like we've gotten back on track here, but here's a friendly reminder to keep it that way. The Cheat
Cantankerous 01-14-05, 11:42 AM	Since Cheat has layed the smack down we'll forget the come backs, though it's hard man, hard. If A=C and D=M then you've still said nothing, just talked in circles, but on the other hand, you've got a lovely singing voice, though the aria is still a bit rough. By the rules the way that you have interpreted them, I doubt that I've ever met one athlete in 50 that would qualify for above an 11 Constituion. I've been and been around athletes my entire life and there are few that are more resistant to colds and other such fripperies than I was myself at the time the arithmia made itself known. At 34 (not as a kid) while playing in a pick up basketball game, I dropped about two minutes into it. I could do wind sprints and walk backs for twenty minutes at a stretch back then, easily enough, the few minutes in that game could NOT have affected me normally. It was the old ticker informing me that there was a malfunction. My Con (to use the game mechanic), as in both my general state of health and as in my stamina were superlative, my heart, which has never bothered me since, even though my life style hasn't changed much, was not, on that particular day. And as we are at it, you still keep ducking the primary issue that the very links YOU supplied refer to the excellent general state of health of many of the athletes who do succumb to arithmias. Ohh, BTW, my continued and continual mis-spelling of arithmia, you want a reason? Go find yourself a round room and start looking for quarters in the corners. Isshia
artman 01-14-05, 12:32 PM	I look to Flint from Dragonlance for any reference about major health problems being connected to your Con score. He had a heart attack. THat is a major health problem. Now, it's been awhile since I have looked at his stats but I'm fairly sure his Con was high. There are just some things that can't be represented in game terms. Kinda sucks but... And to the topic, I like a higher point buy. 32 sounds good to me. Really lets the PCs stand out from the crowds.
crazysamaritan 01-14-05, 12:55 PM	If we're back on topic, I wanna say that D&D O has chosen a 28 point buy! :dragon:
Didge 01-14-05, 01:24 PM	Having read this thread in its totality I have two major points and some minor ones as well. 1) Someone owes me an hour of my life back. I'm looking towards aaron on this one... 2) This argument is petty and immature. No matter what layers of jargon you wish to put on it it can be simply summed up witht he words, "WHAT DOES IT MATTER?" (Do the all caps moments make me look smarter? ) -artman This pretty much sums up my thoughts exactly. I could feel IQ points slipping away (both from me and the posters) reading over the this exchange. But I digress, back to the real topic of 25 vs 28 point buy. In my campaign, I use a combined method of rolling and point buy. I personally prefer to have point buy, but all my players grew up rolling their stats and the mere suggestion of "point buy" is looked unfavorably. So I combined the two. Granted it isn't the perfect system (none are IMHO), but it works for us and yes I'm still not 100% happy with it and continue to refine it inbetween campaigns. Perhaps next I'll have my players take a question and answer test I'll design specifically for them, based on their vision of their character, to determine scores...who knows. I'm sure anything works, so long as everyone is having fun. The concept is that the players have two choices when character creation starts. They either opt for the 4d6 [taking the 3 highest] and reroll once with the rule that whatever you roll is now replaced with whatever it is you roll, or they opt for a 30 point buy. There are no two sets of 4d6 rolls, only one. If they choose to roll and roll poorly, they can then opt for a 24 point buy. I'm still working on this as I want to encourage the players to have an equal chance at rolling (because they love it so much) and having a safety net of point buy if they roll abysmally low. They can also lower their 4d6 rolls if they don't feel it matches their character concept (none have done this to date). I'd be more than willing to hear from anyone who has had success with merging point buy (as a back-up) and random rolling (as a primary), as I think that is the solution that best satisfies all parties. Granted, I've played with the group before (as a player) that I DM now in a game where the DM said to make whatever stats you envision for your character. Mine was the only character who was sub-optimal, and more akin to the 28 point buy. Everyone else had at least two 18's and not a single person's lowest stat was below a 14. One guy brought a character that had four 18's, a 16 and a 15. *sigh* I tend to structure my campaigns based on the characters. I also inform the players that the challanges will be in direct proportion to their stats/classes. If they want to run around with ubber characters that whip out a crap load of damage, fine...I'll run an equivalent challange, and there will most likely be many more close calls regarding character death in combat than if the party wants to play more realistic characters or perhaps focus more on a mystery solving/political role playing style camapign. Fundamentally, do whatever works best in your campaign and with your players. They're there to have fun, and so are you as the DM. Compromise is key.
aaron3579 01-14-05, 04:51 PM	If anyone’s intention is to find the magic button that transforms me into the Uber Jerk, see post 173 and click on the link below. Precisely what offended me about this post is a complex issue that is no longer suitable for the discussion at hand All tom-foolery and mook-stinkery aside, please direct all further insults to http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=363470 I created this thread partially because I have such a bad habit of ticking people off, and it’s always a good idea to vent. I promise to read all of your insults, be genuinely offended, and defend myself from none of them (or if you so wish, I can shoot back). Hey, just trying to keep this thread friendly. Now since many of you are still dead-set on debating this CON issue, I guess I’ll try to put this more delicately: It’s very easy under the core rules to justify having a low CON and a high strength. One example would be heart disease (I can name others). True, you could treat heart disease as an issue separate from CON, and it may even make more sense to do so, (depending on the situation) but you would be making up rules at that point. There is nothing wrong with that, but at the same time there is nothing inherently wrong with docking a character CON points for having a heart disease. In fact, under strict interpretation of the rules, that is what is implied, albeit unwisely. At its heart, this argument is over one side wanting to cram a square peg into a round hole, and the other wanting to drill a new hole. Both solutions leave something to be desired. I propose we make a round peg; we need to consider time-frame. Cantankerous, you said that you collapsed while playing sport. At the moment of your collapse, what would you have rated your constitution score? I’m going to postulate that you would give yourself a moderately low number. However, 24 hours prior to your collapse, you may say that you would give yourself a moderately high number. So let’s look at this objectively: A person with a heart disease can be an Olympic sprinter one moment, and the next moment is scarcely able to breathe. This would indicate a dynamic constitution score: high one moment and abysmal the next. How would you or anyone propose to incorporate such a condition into the game? Instead of arguing back and forth (many of us are guilty of condescension besides my good buddy Cantankerous and me) let’s decide on the best way to make it fit into the game, so that we can all get along. On this thread at least. For now. BTW, wasn’t the CON fight started from some challenge to the point-buy method, or was it issued against rolling stats :confused:
Cantankerous 01-14-05, 05:21 PM	That's the point though Aaron. Like as if I were a character in the game and someone hit me with an effect that TEMPORARILY lowered my Con to, say, 3, once I had time to heal back up (which didn't take all that long) it was back up to, what I would honestly have to say was THEN probaly a 16 or 17. The general Constitution is not lowered by such an event. It remains the same. The character in a game would still, once he healed, have the extra hit points from the high Con once again for instance. What has been being discussed from the outset in this case was not singular incedences (which is why I keep referring to it as a flaw) but rather what the over all Constitution bases itself around. Verstehen? Actually I remember this starting from my ascertion that you couldn't have a world class strength without a decent Con as a minimum. Isshia
crazysamaritan 01-15-05, 01:02 AM	Going with what he said; Heart disease can best be handled with the mechanics of disease (go figure :rolleyes: ) You'd simply replace the incubation period with some sort of action. Secondary damage occurs every time that action occurs. This can kill a person. Heart attacks would also work in this fashion. (although I'm inclined toi treat heart disease as a fort save or die)
Roxlimn 01-20-05, 05:14 AM	Cantankerous: I feel that you are right. One can be in perfectly good health, high Con, and still have a major health defect. Not only heart disease but many other things can show this. Off the top of my head I am thinking about diabetes or Parkinson's. Each o these is a serious health problem that does not increase your chances of getting hurt or getting sicker. Now, if the character has AIDS they will see a Con drop, but that is not the real topic hear. The fact is that a high base Con states nothing about existing health conditions. Parkinson's, yes. Diabetes, no. It's all relative. Cantakerous' anecdotes about his own life notwithstanding, serious heart disease by definition seriously eats into your stamina. Class 3 heart failure, for example, is defined by a palpable limitation in daily activities, so serious heart conditions, by definition, mandate a decrease in Con as an in-game effect. Arrythmias, and certainly relatively minor problems like an occasional atrial flutter or a small septal defect probably have little to no impact on a person's general health, just as a mild treated form of diabetes doesn't either. However, a person with a 37% ventricular ejection fraction isn't going to run any marathons soon, and a person with multiple end stage disease diabetes is all too likely to catch all manner of different diseases, not to mention, probably have low stamina in general. Of course, all heart diseases are to be taken seriously, but the level of danger is vastly different, and a mild congenital arrythmia is probably no more than a small Con penalty, if that. Say, going from 18 to 17. Still, a completely identical person with no defects whatsoever is still by definition, observably healthier. Con effects and abilities are in general very roughly outlined. For example, a person can gain vast amounts of Strength and stamina just by training. In fact, the amount you gain by nominal time spent would probably astound most people who don't. These are not defined in game. This is inherently a more problematic reality issue than any blur you can squeeze out of a one-Con score or a one-Strength score. Of course, in real life, both Con and Str are a lot more complicated and require as much as several sheets to define correctly on anything like a real sense, though most of us can go by a rough estimate most of the time. The core of this issue is Low Con and high Strength. It's possible and I know several patients of this nature. Certainly no 30 Str 3 Cons, but then again, I don't know of any 30 Str people anyway, and certainly no 3 Cons that will live to the next decade, by my estimations. Having said that, there are a number of former athletes that do develop diabetes and heart or liver conditions and their general resistance to disease, poisons, or really, any physical trauma is generally judged to be impaired by common medical consensus, even though they retain a good portion of their strength. Again, some truly strong individuals develop their strength as compensation for other physical disabilities. It's more common than you might think.
Cantankerous 01-20-05, 05:21 AM	I've got admit, after all but living in gyms for better than 20 years, I've never once seen a person with a signifigantly high strength who did not have what would also have to called at the least a moderate Constitution (in this sense measured as stamina). Not one. Including power lifters who were massively gutted and probably near to one hundred pounds OVER their healthy "target weight". Even these guys had a stamina far, far above that of the average couch potato. Look, what are we defining as an average Con? Isn't it supposed to be, roughly, a mean average of the people around us? If it is, then I still maintain that I've NEVER seen a single person with a truely signifigant strength who also didn't have, at the dead least, a decent stamina. Isshia
Didge 01-20-05, 01:19 PM	I've never once seen a person with a signifigantly high strength who did not have what would also have to called at the least a moderate Constitution (in this sense measured as stamina). Not one. Including power lifters who were massively gutted and probably near to one hundred pounds OVER their healthy "target weight". Even these guys had a stamina far, far above that of the average couch potato. -Cantankerous Ok, this got my attention. Two things popped to mind. This may have been the case in your example, and although 20 years is a significant amount of time, it isn't the only case to set up an example. I have seen, and know (my best friend in fact is a living example of this) a person who fits this description. He is 6' 1"-ish and weighs in at roughly 315-ish, if I had to guestimate. As a freshman in HS he could easily bench 450 free weight (and still can to this day) without breaking a sweat. The guy is fundamentally a gorilla, and sometimes we refer to him as "THE missing link", but that aside. He has what I would classify as a very high strength, but an average, if not low Con as he has no endurance/stamina, doesn't eat right, and usually was out sick in HS at least two days a week. He doesn't work out regularly, because he doesn't have the stamina, nor the willpower to do so continuously or for any length of time and is considered by most of us as a "couch potato", but he is still insanely strong. Also, speaking from personal experience, I was training (in my younger days) to be a professional martial artist. I won a number of medals, placed in the top three in most tournaments I competed in, and qualified for Junior Olympics four years in a row. It was something that I was naturally gifted at and was told by many that I was quite good. I trained around 5 hours a day, 6 days a week, during this period of time. Even though I was training that much, I still had no endurance, nor could I build any no matter what I tried to do to improve it. Now, for me I think this had to do with my "exercise induced asthma" which i was diagnosed with later in life, or as I like to say now (as I don't work out nearly as much) is it my being out of shape, or my "exercised induced asthma" causing me to huff and puff after a few minutes of working out. I rarely get sick, consider myself to have an average upper body strength, but my lower body strength is insanely strong. As an 80 pound, 13 year old freshman in HS, I leg-pressed the entire stack of weights (I seem to recall it was over 500 lbs, but not the exact amount). This has to do to an abnormality that I was born with, which is that I have some extra sets of ligaments/tendons in my legs. It is due to this abnormality that I stopped working out so much. My doctor explained that my frame isn't built for the muscle strength in my legs. Which is why as a Senior in HS, I blew out my meniscus, and kept ripping tendons when I'd kick in competitions, and was told if I kept at it that I'd be in a wheelchair when I'm 40 if I continued. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that we can all give personal examples of this or that. Fundamentally though trying too hard to press realistic descriptions of stats, etc. into D&D just doesn't work that well. Sure we can take pieces from here or there and apply it, but hey you can do that with any sort of comparison. Btw, back on topic - Anyone have any good ideas of how to incorperate the free-willed folks of "rolling dice" and "point buy" as a safety net, and still come out with semi-balanced characters?
Genghis Cohen 01-20-05, 02:23 PM	I've got admit, after all but living in gyms for better than 20 years, I've never once seen a person with a signifigantly high strength who did not have what would also have to called at the least a moderate Constitution (in this sense measured as stamina). Not one. Including power lifters who were massively gutted and probably near to one hundred pounds OVER their healthy "target weight". Even these guys had a stamina far, far above that of the average couch potato. Look, what are we defining as an average Con? Isn't it supposed to be, roughly, a mean average of the people around us? If it is, then I still maintain that I've NEVER seen a single person with a truely signifigant strength who also didn't have, at the dead least, a decent stamina. IsshiaHigh strength and low constitution? Think about Mickey Mantle. He was a baseball player with superior strength, speed, stamina, etc. He also was often injured.
Thoronmir 01-20-05, 04:46 PM	My players prefer point-buy over rolling for ability scores. I think it eases their minds to know that all of the PCs will start out on equal footing. Granted, it’s not the most mature attitude to have, but most people want their PCs to measure up to their peers. Starfire311 raised a good point in response to the arguments in favor of the randomness of rolling. If disparity in power among the PCs is not a concern, why start them all out at the same level? The question was rhetorical, but the sentiment is valid. Which represents a greater power differential … one PC with all 18’s versus another with all 12’s or a 2nd level PC versus a 1st level PC? So much for the thread’s topic. As for some of the ancillary issues … Can a marathoner with a heart defect have a low CON? I think so, but he’d probably have the Endurance feat to compensate for his low CON. Glad to see a Wizo step in with a not-so-subtle reminder to keep the thread on track. I’ve been privy to a lot of debates and I can’t remember ever reading such ill-conceived arguments. Well, maybe the alleged Eighth Amendment claims in which a prisoner alleged “cruel and unusual punishment” because the jail smelled bad.
Catwarrior333 01-20-05, 05:06 PM	my players kill me if the dont hav at least 1 18
Blackrazorblade 01-20-05, 07:03 PM	I played in one game where the GM just said "Come up with a character concept and assign whatever stats you think are appropriate." And nobody twinked out. Sure, we were somewhat powerful, but it wasn't ridiculous. Anyone else have an experience like that? i have. turned out the same too, i have used various point buys adn rolling combos for my players and PCs i found that either 4d6d rop one or 5d6 depending on the power works best, they get one re-roll and if there stats are bad enough compared to the others then they can add 1d4 to a stat. I almost never observer rolls, we trust each other and while there may have been soem cheating, i doubt it and it hasn't mad the game less fun. I think roling allows the players to appriciated good stats more, i once played a character with the stats of 3,12,9,18,16,15......my next chracter was 16,16,16,16,17,18
Guy Humual 01-20-05, 09:10 PM	:whatsthis :waits: :nonono: Geez . . . I wasn't going to post on this, but after reading all that . . . I have to say something or I'll have wasted an hour of my life. The group I DM for has used just about every character generation method out there, currently we're using a point buy, and everyone seems quite happy. and here's the thing about the rules they're kinda like those 3D paintings from the 90s, you know, the ones were you had to un-focus your eyes to see the image? Well, the rules work well as long as you don't try to focus, the moment you do . . . Last point, without taking sides, I think the idea behind CON is as subjective as the idea of hit points. CON is a vague idea of how resilient a character is. I mean are high level characters really more meaty then low level characters? So yes, I think someone could have a heart condition and still have a high CON, but I also believe that a person can have a high STR with a low CON. I don’t want an argument, nor am I trying to fuel the debate, I just thought I’d say with RPGs everyone is supposed to win.
aaron3579 01-23-05, 12:00 AM	Starfire311 raised a good point in response to the arguments in favor of the randomness of rolling. If disparity in power among the PCs is not a concern, why start them all out at the same level? The question was rhetorical, but the sentiment is valid. Which represents a greater power differential … one PC with all 18’s versus another with all 12’s or a 2nd level PC versus a 1st level PC? Stats and levels are apples and oranges. That’s my opinion and I'm sticking to it.:P
Zom 01-23-05, 12:28 AM	Stats and levels are apples and oranges. Not really, as a stat bonus (without an associated penalty) for a race is equated to a level adjustment.
crazysamaritan 01-23-05, 12:40 AM	and here's the thing about the rules they're kinda like those 3D paintings from the 90s, you know, the ones were you had to un-focus your eyes to see the image? Well, the rules work well as long as you don't try to focus, the moment you do . . . I'll go with this...
buckeyefan 01-23-05, 01:28 AM	personally, I think if you're going to use the point buy system 40 points is the best. That way, if you are willing to take an 8 as a score, you can get one 18. But I very much prefer to roll my stats. (roll 4d6 and drop the lowest)
aaron3579 01-23-05, 02:15 AM	Not really, as a stat bonus (without an associated penalty) for a race is equated to a level adjustment. An obscure rule concerning level adjustment for the purpose of game-balancing has no bearing on my opinion that stats and levels of XP are two entirely different balls of wax. Statistics are raw numbers that measure your character's ability to perform various tasks. Levels of XP, on the other hand, cannot be blindly equated with sterilized numbers. Experience represents (in my twisted view) the development of more than just skills; it represents the development of a character's personality. See my earlier posts concerning this issue, and you will understand why I feel this way. (Posts 162, 167, and [the bottom of] 179)