Advice for generating characters [Archive] - Wizards Community

Advice for generating characters [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
thecasualoblivion
04-03-07, 11:04 AM I'm a DM about to start a new game. I've always been the sort to run a high-powered game, especially when it comes to character ability scores. I'm tempted to just use the 5d6 method(highly supervised), and am not really sold on the 32 point buy.

As for game balance, I play fairly loose and if characters are more powerful I just throw more at them(I don't rely on CR for designing stuff). I'm just open to any advice on how to get things started.
Leilond
04-03-07, 11:31 AM 32 points is ehought to create very strong characters without creating TOO strong characters
Something like
16-14-14-14-10-10
can be created with 32 point buy. Considering the racial adjustment (non human) you can arrive to something like
18-14-14-14-10-8
16-16-14-12-10-10
16-16-14-14-10-8

All very very nice characters to use with lot of builds without unbalancing nothing
I suggest you 32 point for good characters
Onikani
04-03-07, 11:46 AM I agree, in my game we use 30 point buy, but we have 7 players and i am pretty good about keeping them on par wealthwise...
thecasualoblivion
04-03-07, 12:02 PM 16, 14, 14, 14, 10, 10 just doesn't scream cool to me. I also like a little randomness for flavor. I combined a few systems and got the following results for 10 fighters:

1. Str16, Dex17, Con15, Int12, Wis11, Cha9
2. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int14, Wis16, Cha13
3. Str16, Dex16, Con18, Int13, Wis11, Cha8
4. Str16, Dex13, Con18, Int11, Wis10, Cha11
5. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int13, Wis15, Cha11
6. Str16, Dex14, Con18, Int15, Wis16, Cha15
7. Str18, Dex12, Con17, Int16, Wis12, Cha10
8. Str16, Dex17, Con17, Int13, Wis14, Cha13
9. Str16, Dex17, Con16, Int14, Wis13, Cha12
10. Str18, Dex14, Con15, Int14, Wis16, Cha15

#6 and #10 are more than a little overpowered, but overall I'm not unhappy with the other 8.
Leilond
04-03-07, 12:19 PM 16, 14, 14, 14, 10, 10 just doesn't scream cool to me. I also like a little randomness for flavor. I combined a few systems and got the following results for 10 fighters:

1. Str16, Dex17, Con15, Int12, Wis11, Cha9
2. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int14, Wis16, Cha13
3. Str16, Dex16, Con18, Int13, Wis11, Cha8
4. Str16, Dex13, Con18, Int11, Wis10, Cha11
5. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int13, Wis15, Cha11
6. Str16, Dex14, Con18, Int15, Wis16, Cha15
7. Str18, Dex12, Con17, Int16, Wis12, Cha10
8. Str16, Dex17, Con17, Int13, Wis14, Cha13
9. Str16, Dex17, Con16, Int14, Wis13, Cha12
10. Str18, Dex14, Con15, Int14, Wis16, Cha15

#6 and #10 are more than a little overpowered, but overall I'm not unhappy with the other 8.
Only "little"???
#7 #9 are "a little" overpowered
#2 #6 #8 #10 are OVERPOWERED
thecasualoblivion
04-03-07, 12:29 PM Only "little"???
#7 #9 are "a little" overpowered
#2 #6 #8 #10 are OVERPOWERED

32 point buy seemed a little low to me, and I was looking at the 5d6 method above all else at the start, so overpowered by regular standards was basically what I was aiming for.

#6 and #10 I called more than a little overpowered, meaning a little too good. I was also judging this based on the character being a non-multiclassing single class fighter, so I was putting a lesser value on 15+ Int, Wis, and Cha, and to a lesser extent Dex.
Magnus029
04-03-07, 12:33 PM 16, 14, 14, 14, 10, 10 just doesn't scream cool to me. I also like a little randomness for flavor. I combined a few systems and got the following results for 10 fighters:

1. Str16, Dex17, Con15, Int12, Wis11, Cha9
2. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int14, Wis16, Cha13
3. Str16, Dex16, Con18, Int13, Wis11, Cha8
4. Str16, Dex13, Con18, Int11, Wis10, Cha11
5. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int13, Wis15, Cha11
6. Str16, Dex14, Con18, Int15, Wis16, Cha15
7. Str18, Dex12, Con17, Int16, Wis12, Cha10
8. Str16, Dex17, Con17, Int13, Wis14, Cha13
9. Str16, Dex17, Con16, Int14, Wis13, Cha12
10. Str18, Dex14, Con15, Int14, Wis16, Cha15

#6 and #10 are more than a little overpowered, but overall I'm not unhappy with the other 8.

Ahh, brings me back to when I was 15 and the numbers meant everything.

32 pt buy makes for a very solid character. That is what I use in my game and things work out very well. Players can easily put the characters together that they want with that.
Leilond
04-03-07, 12:33 PM Come on!
#2 #6 and #10 are overpowered with all type of multiclass choice you can immagine to use! They are simply and completely too strong unless you want to play a "demi-god" characters
Magnus029
04-03-07, 12:38 PM 32 point buy seemed a little low to me, and I was looking at the 5d6 method above all else at the start, so overpowered by regular standards was basically what I was aiming for.

#6 and #10 I called more than a little overpowered, meaning a little too good. I was also judging this based on the character being a non-multiclassing single class fighter, so I was putting a lesser value on 15+ Int, Wis, and Cha, and to a lesser extent Dex.

An above average fighter would look something more like Str 16 Dex 12 Con 16 Int 10 Wis 12 Char 10

No negatives, Bonus to even there worst saves and still able to maximize Dex with Full Plate, assuming thats the type a fighter you want.

Some people might even feel that the above stats are a little overpowered as that does come off a 32 PB system, and clearly I am using human as the base, Going dwarf, you can drop the Cha back to 8 and bump the con to 18, not to big a hit in Cha and the extra HP and Fort bonus are nice.
Edana
04-03-07, 12:42 PM I'm a DM about to start a new game. I've always been the sort to run a high-powered game, especially when it comes to character ability scores. I'm tempted to just use the 5d6 method(highly supervised), and am not really sold on the 32 point buy.

As for game balance, I play fairly loose and if characters are more powerful I just throw more at them(I don't rely on CR for designing stuff). I'm just open to any advice on how to get things started.

Statistically the standard 4d6 with the 'hopeless character' reroll ends up being around a 30-31 point buy equivalent, so it's likely that 5d6 with a similar reroll possibility would be much higher than a 32 point buy. (Of course, this is statistics, there's no guarantee you won't end up with some really bad or really good sets of scores).

With 5d6 odds are pretty good that everyone will have at least one 17 or 18, and will probably have multiple high scores. If you're looking for a point buy equivalent, I would probably suggest 35 or 36 points as a starting place for that general power level.

If, however, you're just looking for something a bit over the normal rolling, 32 points is perfectly reasonable.

---

If you're just looking for other ways to generate stats, I've used this variant before, and it works reasonably well:

Give the players 25d6 (Or maybe 26-27 for a higher power game). Have them allocate those dice to specific abilities, minimum 3d6, maximum 6d6. Then they roll the appopriate dice for each score and keep the best 3.

This gives you randomness, but lets the player skew the statistics in their favor for stats they believe are really important by adding extra dice.

25 dice is enough to put 4 in every stat, with 1 extra, so it's 'better' than the standard 4d6 roll.

Mostly, I tend to use point buy (usually 28-30 points) though, as it's a lot less work and there's no need to be present for the creation ;)
antsterr
04-03-07, 12:55 PM eesh. Does everyone have to have a bonus at everything? 4d6 a good way to BUT can end up with some really really crappy stats occasionally. I had a guy roll 11,9,10,5,7,9 at the start of our last campaign. To avoid that do it like this:
Roll 4d6 for each stat, if you're total bonuses is less than +4 (including any - you might have) than you can reroll. If you don't have a single stat at over 15 you can reroll. Once you get your stats you may switch one set of stats to better suite your class.

I really think a decent PC shouldn't need more than one stat above 15 and should have at least one 8 or 9 stat to give them a weakness to play up.
Leilond
04-03-07, 01:05 PM I've tried this system and it was really funny!

Let's assume we have a 5 character party (can be made with every number)
Chose 6 good values like
18-17-15-13-12-10 (or something you like)
Repeat the array 5 times (one time for each player)
You'll have
5x18 - 5x16 - 5x14 - 5x12 - 5x10
Now give 1000 virtual gold conis to the players and let's start an auction for each value in the array order
An auction for a "18", than for a "16" then for a "14" and ahead till "12"... then start again from 18.
At the end all character will have GOOD characters but everyone can "focalize" on 1-2 "high values auctions" or more "medium values auctions".
It take a bit of time but the players will "fight" for their values

I used it with 4 players with these values for auctions
18-18-17-17
16-16-16-15
15-15-14-14
14-13-13-12
12-11-11-10
10-9-9-8

And we got lot of fun... al with decent character (you can change the values to have stronger or weaker characters)
thecasualoblivion
04-03-07, 01:07 PM As far as balance goes, the game is as balanced as you make it. I have never played this game "out of the book". The book I have ignored the most by far is the monster manual. I start people off with higher ability scores, but the stuff I throw at them is also more difficult to deal with. Generic cannon fodder NPCs use the "elite array", and major and minor villains I build on the same power levels as the PCs. I don't use CRs, and I buff monsters almost as a matter of principle. I've been known to do it in the middle of battle, as I never reveal my statistics and if the PCs are doing better/worse against things than I want them to, encounters magically gain more/less HP and attack bonus on the fly.

All this being said, I'm not fond of straight 4d6 and 5d6 rolling as I've seen too many wildly different results. I don't care how well characters are balanced against the game, as I can fix that on the other end, but I do care how characters are balanced against each other. Point buy ends up with characters that look generic to me. I like Fighters who accidently roll 16 for INT.

The method I used for the 10 fighters I rolled was this:

1. Organic 5d6, applied in the order rolled to Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha
2. Reroll any one score
3. Switch any two scores
4. Classes primary stat(as determined by me) may be replaced by a 16--AND THIS OCCURS LAST! This means no dropping a 16 on STR and swapping it for the 18 in Con.

I did this with 4d6 and actually got almost identical results to when I was doing it with 5d6, just less 17s and 18s. Doing things this way I was able to make 10 characters, all of which fit the profile of what I was aiming for(high str and con, with solid other scores) and with some random variation in the other scores, without any weak results.
Someone
04-03-07, 01:18 PM The houserule I add to pointbuy is that at least two of the attributes must be odd numbers. Yeah, in this case it would just be 16, 14, 13, 12, 12, 11 or something like that, but it makes it look more like rolled numbers.

The big problem I have with 32 or higher points is that it makes an 18 less of an investment. You could easily have 18, 14, 12, 12, 10, 8 (or 18/14/13/11/10/8 with my limitation). Expect many of your spellcaster PCs to go along those lines.
thecasualoblivion
04-03-07, 01:25 PM The houserule I add to pointbuy is that at least two of the attributes must be odd numbers. Yeah, in this case it would just be 16, 14, 13, 12, 12, 11 or something like that, but it makes it look more like rolled numbers.

The big problem I have with 32 or higher points is that it makes an 18 less of an investment. You could easily have 18, 14, 12, 12, 10, 8 (or 18/14/13/11/10/8 with my limitation). Expect many of your spellcaster PCs to go along those lines.

One of the things I like about my superpowered broken system is that an 18 in your main stat is an investment, especially for casters. In order to put an 18 in your main(and always your casting) stat, you have to forgo the free 16.

A caster would have to begin as a non-caster to circumvent this, losing a caster level, and trying to cheat my system would incur my wrath anyway. There are an infinite amount of subtle ways to deal with a disruptive powergamer.
MikeR7716
04-03-07, 01:29 PM Our group has used a homebrew for generating characters for years.

1) Three sets of 3d6, reroll 1's
2) Three sets of 3d6, reroll 1's and 2's.
3) Repeat to create 2 groups of 6 stats.
4) If there is not at least 1 exceptional (15+) stat in a group, the group can be discarded and rerolled (start at (1)).

Racial and other improvements are added on after going through the four steps. Although there have been a couple of very powerful characters, it usually makes for a very playable party. It does sometimes dictate the character's class or focus, but part of the fun is seeing how creative folks are with what they are given to work with.
Magnus029
04-03-07, 01:32 PM Our group has used a homebrew for generating characters for years.

1) Three sets of 3d6, reroll 1's
2) Three sets of 3d6, reroll 1's and 2's.
3) Repeat to create 2 groups of 6 stats.
4) If there is not at least 1 exceptional (15+) stat in a group, the group can be discarded and rerolled (start at (1)).

Racial and other improvements are added on after going through the four steps. Although there have been a couple of very powerful characters, it usually makes for a very playable party. It does sometimes dictate the character's class or focus, but part of the fun is seeing how creative folks are with what they are given to work with.

Consider this stolen!
Navigator
04-03-07, 01:36 PM One of the things I like about my superpowered broken system is that an 18 in your main stat is an investment, especially for casters. In order to put an 18 in your main(and always your casting) stat, you have to forgo the free 16.

A caster would have to begin as a non-caster to circumvent this, losing a caster level, and trying to cheat my system would incur my wrath anyway. There are an infinite amount of subtle ways to deal with a disruptive powergamer.

Caster does not equal powergamer.
thecasualoblivion
04-03-07, 01:42 PM Caster does not equal powergamer.

I wasn't calling casters powergamers. I was calling a Bard1/Wizard19 starting play as a Bard to start play with 18 INT a powergamer. I was calling multiclassing through 11 classes powergaming.
MikeR7716
04-03-07, 03:06 PM Consider this stolen!

Just remember, the player gets to pick between the two groups of stats, but if one of the groups is dropped because it isn't exceptional, it is gone. I have seen groups with lots of 13's and 14's that were dropped and replaced for 6's and 8's with a single 15.

That being said, the other players have called for mercy if a player is having a horrible dice day. Ours is not a powergaming group, but everyone has to have fun.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
thecasualoblivion 04-03-07, 11:04 AM	I'm a DM about to start a new game. I've always been the sort to run a high-powered game, especially when it comes to character ability scores. I'm tempted to just use the 5d6 method(highly supervised), and am not really sold on the 32 point buy. As for game balance, I play fairly loose and if characters are more powerful I just throw more at them(I don't rely on CR for designing stuff). I'm just open to any advice on how to get things started.
Leilond 04-03-07, 11:31 AM	32 points is ehought to create very strong characters without creating TOO strong characters Something like 16-14-14-14-10-10 can be created with 32 point buy. Considering the racial adjustment (non human) you can arrive to something like 18-14-14-14-10-8 16-16-14-12-10-10 16-16-14-14-10-8 All very very nice characters to use with lot of builds without unbalancing nothing I suggest you 32 point for good characters
Onikani 04-03-07, 11:46 AM	I agree, in my game we use 30 point buy, but we have 7 players and i am pretty good about keeping them on par wealthwise...
thecasualoblivion 04-03-07, 12:02 PM	16, 14, 14, 14, 10, 10 just doesn't scream cool to me. I also like a little randomness for flavor. I combined a few systems and got the following results for 10 fighters: 1. Str16, Dex17, Con15, Int12, Wis11, Cha9 2. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int14, Wis16, Cha13 3. Str16, Dex16, Con18, Int13, Wis11, Cha8 4. Str16, Dex13, Con18, Int11, Wis10, Cha11 5. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int13, Wis15, Cha11 6. Str16, Dex14, Con18, Int15, Wis16, Cha15 7. Str18, Dex12, Con17, Int16, Wis12, Cha10 8. Str16, Dex17, Con17, Int13, Wis14, Cha13 9. Str16, Dex17, Con16, Int14, Wis13, Cha12 10. Str18, Dex14, Con15, Int14, Wis16, Cha15 #6 and #10 are more than a little overpowered, but overall I'm not unhappy with the other 8.
Leilond 04-03-07, 12:19 PM	16, 14, 14, 14, 10, 10 just doesn't scream cool to me. I also like a little randomness for flavor. I combined a few systems and got the following results for 10 fighters: 1. Str16, Dex17, Con15, Int12, Wis11, Cha9 2. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int14, Wis16, Cha13 3. Str16, Dex16, Con18, Int13, Wis11, Cha8 4. Str16, Dex13, Con18, Int11, Wis10, Cha11 5. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int13, Wis15, Cha11 6. Str16, Dex14, Con18, Int15, Wis16, Cha15 7. Str18, Dex12, Con17, Int16, Wis12, Cha10 8. Str16, Dex17, Con17, Int13, Wis14, Cha13 9. Str16, Dex17, Con16, Int14, Wis13, Cha12 10. Str18, Dex14, Con15, Int14, Wis16, Cha15 #6 and #10 are more than a little overpowered, but overall I'm not unhappy with the other 8. Only "little"??? #7 #9 are "a little" overpowered #2 #6 #8 #10 are OVERPOWERED
thecasualoblivion 04-03-07, 12:29 PM	Only "little"??? #7 #9 are "a little" overpowered #2 #6 #8 #10 are OVERPOWERED 32 point buy seemed a little low to me, and I was looking at the 5d6 method above all else at the start, so overpowered by regular standards was basically what I was aiming for. #6 and #10 I called more than a little overpowered, meaning a little too good. I was also judging this based on the character being a non-multiclassing single class fighter, so I was putting a lesser value on 15+ Int, Wis, and Cha, and to a lesser extent Dex.
Magnus029 04-03-07, 12:33 PM	16, 14, 14, 14, 10, 10 just doesn't scream cool to me. I also like a little randomness for flavor. I combined a few systems and got the following results for 10 fighters: 1. Str16, Dex17, Con15, Int12, Wis11, Cha9 2. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int14, Wis16, Cha13 3. Str16, Dex16, Con18, Int13, Wis11, Cha8 4. Str16, Dex13, Con18, Int11, Wis10, Cha11 5. Str16, Dex14, Con16, Int13, Wis15, Cha11 6. Str16, Dex14, Con18, Int15, Wis16, Cha15 7. Str18, Dex12, Con17, Int16, Wis12, Cha10 8. Str16, Dex17, Con17, Int13, Wis14, Cha13 9. Str16, Dex17, Con16, Int14, Wis13, Cha12 10. Str18, Dex14, Con15, Int14, Wis16, Cha15 #6 and #10 are more than a little overpowered, but overall I'm not unhappy with the other 8. Ahh, brings me back to when I was 15 and the numbers meant everything. 32 pt buy makes for a very solid character. That is what I use in my game and things work out very well. Players can easily put the characters together that they want with that.
Leilond 04-03-07, 12:33 PM	Come on! #2 #6 and #10 are overpowered with all type of multiclass choice you can immagine to use! They are simply and completely too strong unless you want to play a "demi-god" characters
Magnus029 04-03-07, 12:38 PM	32 point buy seemed a little low to me, and I was looking at the 5d6 method above all else at the start, so overpowered by regular standards was basically what I was aiming for. #6 and #10 I called more than a little overpowered, meaning a little too good. I was also judging this based on the character being a non-multiclassing single class fighter, so I was putting a lesser value on 15+ Int, Wis, and Cha, and to a lesser extent Dex. An above average fighter would look something more like Str 16 Dex 12 Con 16 Int 10 Wis 12 Char 10 No negatives, Bonus to even there worst saves and still able to maximize Dex with Full Plate, assuming thats the type a fighter you want. Some people might even feel that the above stats are a little overpowered as that does come off a 32 PB system, and clearly I am using human as the base, Going dwarf, you can drop the Cha back to 8 and bump the con to 18, not to big a hit in Cha and the extra HP and Fort bonus are nice.
Edana 04-03-07, 12:42 PM	I'm a DM about to start a new game. I've always been the sort to run a high-powered game, especially when it comes to character ability scores. I'm tempted to just use the 5d6 method(highly supervised), and am not really sold on the 32 point buy. As for game balance, I play fairly loose and if characters are more powerful I just throw more at them(I don't rely on CR for designing stuff). I'm just open to any advice on how to get things started. Statistically the standard 4d6 with the 'hopeless character' reroll ends up being around a 30-31 point buy equivalent, so it's likely that 5d6 with a similar reroll possibility would be much higher than a 32 point buy. (Of course, this is statistics, there's no guarantee you won't end up with some really bad or really good sets of scores). With 5d6 odds are pretty good that everyone will have at least one 17 or 18, and will probably have multiple high scores. If you're looking for a point buy equivalent, I would probably suggest 35 or 36 points as a starting place for that general power level. If, however, you're just looking for something a bit over the normal rolling, 32 points is perfectly reasonable. --- If you're just looking for other ways to generate stats, I've used this variant before, and it works reasonably well: Give the players 25d6 (Or maybe 26-27 for a higher power game). Have them allocate those dice to specific abilities, minimum 3d6, maximum 6d6. Then they roll the appopriate dice for each score and keep the best 3. This gives you randomness, but lets the player skew the statistics in their favor for stats they believe are really important by adding extra dice. 25 dice is enough to put 4 in every stat, with 1 extra, so it's 'better' than the standard 4d6 roll. Mostly, I tend to use point buy (usually 28-30 points) though, as it's a lot less work and there's no need to be present for the creation ;)
antsterr 04-03-07, 12:55 PM	eesh. Does everyone have to have a bonus at everything? 4d6 a good way to BUT can end up with some really really crappy stats occasionally. I had a guy roll 11,9,10,5,7,9 at the start of our last campaign. To avoid that do it like this: Roll 4d6 for each stat, if you're total bonuses is less than +4 (including any - you might have) than you can reroll. If you don't have a single stat at over 15 you can reroll. Once you get your stats you may switch one set of stats to better suite your class. I really think a decent PC shouldn't need more than one stat above 15 and should have at least one 8 or 9 stat to give them a weakness to play up.
Leilond 04-03-07, 01:05 PM	I've tried this system and it was really funny! Let's assume we have a 5 character party (can be made with every number) Chose 6 good values like 18-17-15-13-12-10 (or something you like) Repeat the array 5 times (one time for each player) You'll have 5x18 - 5x16 - 5x14 - 5x12 - 5x10 Now give 1000 virtual gold conis to the players and let's start an auction for each value in the array order An auction for a "18", than for a "16" then for a "14" and ahead till "12"... then start again from 18. At the end all character will have GOOD characters but everyone can "focalize" on 1-2 "high values auctions" or more "medium values auctions". It take a bit of time but the players will "fight" for their values I used it with 4 players with these values for auctions 18-18-17-17 16-16-16-15 15-15-14-14 14-13-13-12 12-11-11-10 10-9-9-8 And we got lot of fun... al with decent character (you can change the values to have stronger or weaker characters)
thecasualoblivion 04-03-07, 01:07 PM	As far as balance goes, the game is as balanced as you make it. I have never played this game "out of the book". The book I have ignored the most by far is the monster manual. I start people off with higher ability scores, but the stuff I throw at them is also more difficult to deal with. Generic cannon fodder NPCs use the "elite array", and major and minor villains I build on the same power levels as the PCs. I don't use CRs, and I buff monsters almost as a matter of principle. I've been known to do it in the middle of battle, as I never reveal my statistics and if the PCs are doing better/worse against things than I want them to, encounters magically gain more/less HP and attack bonus on the fly. All this being said, I'm not fond of straight 4d6 and 5d6 rolling as I've seen too many wildly different results. I don't care how well characters are balanced against the game, as I can fix that on the other end, but I do care how characters are balanced against each other. Point buy ends up with characters that look generic to me. I like Fighters who accidently roll 16 for INT. The method I used for the 10 fighters I rolled was this: 1. Organic 5d6, applied in the order rolled to Str/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha 2. Reroll any one score 3. Switch any two scores 4. Classes primary stat(as determined by me) may be replaced by a 16--AND THIS OCCURS LAST! This means no dropping a 16 on STR and swapping it for the 18 in Con. I did this with 4d6 and actually got almost identical results to when I was doing it with 5d6, just less 17s and 18s. Doing things this way I was able to make 10 characters, all of which fit the profile of what I was aiming for(high str and con, with solid other scores) and with some random variation in the other scores, without any weak results.
Someone 04-03-07, 01:18 PM	The houserule I add to pointbuy is that at least two of the attributes must be odd numbers. Yeah, in this case it would just be 16, 14, 13, 12, 12, 11 or something like that, but it makes it look more like rolled numbers. The big problem I have with 32 or higher points is that it makes an 18 less of an investment. You could easily have 18, 14, 12, 12, 10, 8 (or 18/14/13/11/10/8 with my limitation). Expect many of your spellcaster PCs to go along those lines.
thecasualoblivion 04-03-07, 01:25 PM	The houserule I add to pointbuy is that at least two of the attributes must be odd numbers. Yeah, in this case it would just be 16, 14, 13, 12, 12, 11 or something like that, but it makes it look more like rolled numbers. The big problem I have with 32 or higher points is that it makes an 18 less of an investment. You could easily have 18, 14, 12, 12, 10, 8 (or 18/14/13/11/10/8 with my limitation). Expect many of your spellcaster PCs to go along those lines. One of the things I like about my superpowered broken system is that an 18 in your main stat is an investment, especially for casters. In order to put an 18 in your main(and always your casting) stat, you have to forgo the free 16. A caster would have to begin as a non-caster to circumvent this, losing a caster level, and trying to cheat my system would incur my wrath anyway. There are an infinite amount of subtle ways to deal with a disruptive powergamer.
MikeR7716 04-03-07, 01:29 PM	Our group has used a homebrew for generating characters for years. 1) Three sets of 3d6, reroll 1's 2) Three sets of 3d6, reroll 1's and 2's. 3) Repeat to create 2 groups of 6 stats. 4) If there is not at least 1 exceptional (15+) stat in a group, the group can be discarded and rerolled (start at (1)). Racial and other improvements are added on after going through the four steps. Although there have been a couple of very powerful characters, it usually makes for a very playable party. It does sometimes dictate the character's class or focus, but part of the fun is seeing how creative folks are with what they are given to work with.
Magnus029 04-03-07, 01:32 PM	Our group has used a homebrew for generating characters for years. 1) Three sets of 3d6, reroll 1's 2) Three sets of 3d6, reroll 1's and 2's. 3) Repeat to create 2 groups of 6 stats. 4) If there is not at least 1 exceptional (15+) stat in a group, the group can be discarded and rerolled (start at (1)). Racial and other improvements are added on after going through the four steps. Although there have been a couple of very powerful characters, it usually makes for a very playable party. It does sometimes dictate the character's class or focus, but part of the fun is seeing how creative folks are with what they are given to work with. Consider this stolen!
Navigator 04-03-07, 01:36 PM	One of the things I like about my superpowered broken system is that an 18 in your main stat is an investment, especially for casters. In order to put an 18 in your main(and always your casting) stat, you have to forgo the free 16. A caster would have to begin as a non-caster to circumvent this, losing a caster level, and trying to cheat my system would incur my wrath anyway. There are an infinite amount of subtle ways to deal with a disruptive powergamer. Caster does not equal powergamer.
thecasualoblivion 04-03-07, 01:42 PM	Caster does not equal powergamer. I wasn't calling casters powergamers. I was calling a Bard1/Wizard19 starting play as a Bard to start play with 18 INT a powergamer. I was calling multiclassing through 11 classes powergaming.
MikeR7716 04-03-07, 03:06 PM	Consider this stolen! Just remember, the player gets to pick between the two groups of stats, but if one of the groups is dropped because it isn't exceptional, it is gone. I have seen groups with lots of 13's and 14's that were dropped and replaced for 6's and 8's with a single 15. That being said, the other players have called for mercy if a player is having a horrible dice day. Ours is not a powergaming group, but everyone has to have fun.