Post/Author/DateTime	Post
YRM 01-18-06, 01:41 PM	If you're torn between the randomness of dice rolled PCs and the spread of point buy, consider this other system. With dice rolls, it's fun, but sometimes, one character gets rolls below average while another gets 12-18 on each stat. With point buy, classes that require multiple high stats have an edge. Paladins, monks and bards can coast with, say, 14s and 12s, averaging a higher total PLUS to their overall stat modifiers. 14, 14, 14, 12, 12, 10 is +8 total, while taking an 18 in a stat pushes the PC down to a lower "bang for their buck", and gives them some very weak scores. Anyway, I came up with a system that is even for everyone, but does allow for a single high stat without punishing the overall modifier total. --- 1 - Each player takes 3 even, and 3 odd stats before racial modifiers. 2 - No two stat numbers can be the same. 3 - No single score can be higher than 8. Results might be: 18, 17, 13, 11, 10, 8 = Total Modifier of 8 17, 15, 13, 14, 12, 8 = Total Modifier of 8 11, 17, 10, 16, 12, 13 = Total Modifier of 8 18, 14, 13, 9, 17, 8 = Total Modifier of 8 13, 16, 14, 12, 11, 10 = Total Modifier of 8 So you can power a few stats and have an 8 & 9 too, or you can spread the wealth somewhat... You can't do 18, 18, 18, 9, 7, 7 though, so players are encouraged to be well rounded, just as they are in point buy. Point Buy is ok, but, it does favor classes that like well rounded stats over something like a Barbarian, who really needs a strong focus in STR and CON (like an 18 and a 17). You can easily do that in this system. In any case, if you were looking for some other way to do stats, we've done this in a few campaigns and everyone has been happy with the diverse, but fair, results. It's easy to weaken this system just by changing the magic number to 6 or 7 instead of 8.
olshanski_home 01-18-06, 01:57 PM	The trouble is that a single high score is worth more than several medium scores. A total modifier of +8 is not worth as much spread around as if it is focused in just a few stats. The beauty of point buy is that it reflects this discrepency, and makes very high stats more "expensive" than mid-range stats. It forces some tough decisions... if you want that very high stat, you are going to pay for it with MANY lower stats. I don't see that your method has provided any advantage. 18, 17, 16, 11, 9, 8 = total stats +8 Point buy = 43 point buy. Dwarf fighter: STR 18, DEX 17, CON 18, WIS 11, INT 9, CHA 6. Doesn't look very well balanced compared to most 25 point buy characters.
YRM 01-18-06, 02:30 PM	The trouble is that a single high score is worth more than several medium scores. A total modifier of +8 is not worth as much spread around as if it is focused in just a few stats. The beauty of point buy is that it reflects this discrepency, and makes very high stats more "expensive" than mid-range stats. It forces some tough decisions... if you want that very high stat, you are going to pay for it with MANY lower stats. I guess I just don't agree with that premise. The people who invented point buy did so when the game was less balanced than it is now. With so many new spells, feats and skill uses, a player focused only on being a meat shield will suffer greatly in many campaign aspects, including fighting a lot of type of enemies. - Many feats require good levels of INT or CHA to acquire. - INT regulates skill points that are vital for survival. - Most people would like to get a reasonable bonus to their saves. - Special uses of Skills in the complete series beg lots of ranks and stat bonuses. - Most classes and prestige classes thrive or even require a variety of mixed stats. A Human Monk with 14, 14, 12, 12, 14, 10 is so much more well rounded through a campaign than a Half Orc fighter with 20, 14, 14, 6, 8, 6. The later point buy model is almost unplayable, only excelling in melee combat with melee foes, but failing in every other area of the game. His skills in general and social skills specificly make him useless outside of combat and his will saves make him an instant kill to Hold Person + Coup De Gras, and I'm just not sure why a good melee fighter should have to be penalized so much. In my campaign, this character would be SO much worse than the monk, it's hardly justified that he paid so many extra points for his single 18.
olshanski_home 01-18-06, 02:44 PM	You failed to address my observation "The trouble is that a single high score is worth more than several medium scores. A total modifier of +8 is not worth as much spread around as if it is focused in just a few stats. The beauty of point buy is that it reflects this discrepency, and makes very high stats more "expensive" than mid-range stats. It forces some tough decisions... if you want that very high stat, you are going to pay for it with MANY lower stats. I don't see that your method has provided any advantage." A fighter with a STRENGTH 18 is better off than a fighter with STR 14 and CHA 14. A character does not exist in a vacuum. There is no need for a fighter to have high CHA because there are other members of the party cleric/rogue/bard that will handle CHA based challenges. A fighter is meant to deal damage in melee combat, and he needs a high score to do it. I don't think you should look at an individual character and expect him to do well in all situations. Sure, the 11 WIS fighter will fail a will save 10% more often than the fighter who has a 14 WIS. That's why the cleric has "protection from evil" and the wizard has "dispel magic"... so that you can help the fighter with the poor will save recover from the attack. If you build two parties, and you give one party your stats 14,14,14,12,12,10, and give the other party 18,17,16,11,9,8; I assure you that the higher-stat build is going to be better able to handle a wider variety of challenges, much easier than the mid-range stat party. The high stat party will deal more damage, have more deadly (higher DC spells), and have better skills where necessary. The party with the 18 Dex rogue will be able to open more locks and disable more traps than the 14 dex rogue. The party with the 18 strength fighter will kill more things than the 14 strength fighter. The 18 WIS Cleric will have more spells and better healing than the 14 Wis cleric. The 18 CHA bard will be better at negotiation than the 14 CHA bard. His skills in general, will saves, and social skills make him an instant kill to Hold Person + Coup De Gras, and I'm just not sure why a good melee fighter should have to be penalized so much.A 10% greater vulnerability to will saves is hardly enough to make him "instant kill". That is all we are talking about with the difference between 11 WIS and 14 WIS. Besides, with the extra points put into CON, the high-stat fighter is also 10% more likely to succeed at the Fort save VS coup-de-grace than the average stat guy.
YRM 01-18-06, 02:55 PM	You failed to address my observation "The trouble is that a single high score is worth more than several medium scores." I don't agree that a single high score is worth more. A fighter with a STRENGTH 18 is better off than a fighter with STR 14 and CHA 14. A character does not exist in a vacuum. That's because the class is designed for a certain limited role, and point buy pidgeon holes that guy even more. But the latter example you gave, the fighter would qualify for "Holy" feats from BoED, and other prestige classes. He'd combine well with a cleric to become a Fist of Raziel too. If you build two parties, and you give one party your stats 14,14,14,12,12,10, and give the other party 18,17,16,11,9,8; I assure you that the higher-stat build is going to be better able to handle a wider variety of challenges That's because you're comparing apples and oranges. The first set of stats is a maximized example from a 28 pt buy system. The second set of stats is from my +8 modifier system, which is a stronger system because, even if you spread out average stats, you are set up to improve those at levels 4, 8, and 12. With the +8 modifier system, the "average" stat build would likely be something like this: 10, 13, 12, 14, 11, 15 = Modifier +8 That'd be a fine set of stats for a Bard with a lot of skills, and able to bump CHA and DEX at levels 4 and 8. The +8 system allows for planning the stat you want to bump over the first 12 levels (4, 8, 12) I don't think a bard with the stats I described is a worse PC in ANY way than a Dwarf Fighter with: 18, 17, 18, 11, 9, 6 The bard will be better off over the life of the campaign... and here's the rub. The bard will be better off IN SPITE of the fact that I didn't punish the dwarven fighter for focusing his high stats. You don't have to use the system, but, it is a viable alternative for a campaign that features a wide variety of challenges.
jagggar 01-18-06, 03:25 PM	With the +8 modifier system, the "average" stat build would likely be something like this: 10, 13, 12, 14, 11, 15 = Modifier +8 No, to me that looks like a 28 PB with a total modifier of +6 (=0+1+1+2+0+2). Edit: 16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 10 seems like it would be about average and total +8 (=3+2+2+1+0+0).
Lord Ian Stark 01-18-06, 03:37 PM	I applaud anyone at attempting to perfect the character stats generation for a new PC. I personally like a rolling method as it stops min maxing. Like olshanski_home was saying, people are going to put the points into the stats they need to be effective for there class reguardless of how you look at it. And point buy makes peeps min-max most of the time. As a long time Paladin, the rolling method is never good to me as I need so many decent stats. With point buy I just put them where I want. This is fine but it doesn't feel authentic. I understand I put the rolled stats where I want them too, but to me that's not as bad as bldg up each stat one number at a time, perfecting it. The rolling method is RAW, even thought the MM was created with creatures having 11's and 10's as base stats or something like that. Make sense? Not really. But in the end, we all try to find that perfect stat generator. So you can power a few stats and have an 8 & 9 too, or you can spread the wealth somewhat... As far as your system, it seems to lessen the impact of min maxing and seems to be a better alternative then the original point buy having the stats more rounded.
YRM 01-18-06, 10:18 PM	No, to me that looks like a 28 PB with a total modifier of +6 (=0+1+1+2+0+2). Edit: 16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 10 seems like it would be about average and total +8 (=3+2+2+1+0+0). My bad, but, in any case, those stats are fairy spread out. A bard with 10 STR, 15 DEX, 13 CON, 14 INT, 11 WIS, and 16 CHA would be more effective overall than a Dwarf Fighter with 18 STR, 17 DEX, 18 CON, 9 INT, 10 WIS and 6 CHA. The 6 CHA, in my game, would have to indicate SOME combination of offensive characteristics. Perhaps the dwarf looks paunchy, with bad breath, lice in his beard, and a ragged scar across his face. Unless he put points into social skills (and he lacks points), he'd likely be rude and offensive most of the time. His skills would be severely lacking in general, and he'd fail will saves frequently. He'd be slow, and wearing heavy armor would further sink him in balance, jump, and swim situations, in spite of his STR. He couldn't survive in the wild, find traps, search for items, understand their worth, or handle animals. So yeah, if a PC did want to push a few stats up with this system, and with racial modifiers, I'd allow it provided they understood that there would only be one area that they'd excel. If a player, perhaps shy, who doesn't like to roleplay or be involved in anything but combat, wanted to do that, I wouldn't stop them. They'd have to be content to follow the party's lead in every other area except melee combat.
jagggar 01-19-06, 11:21 AM	I think it's kind of odd comparing a well rounded bard to a 'lopsided' fighter. It's probably better if we compare a fighter to a fighter and a bard to a bard. I think where my trouble lies with this method is it's trouble scaling down. Lower the modifier enough without lowering the low score, and you might as well give your characters an array instead of this method. I haven't messed too much with adjusting the lower end yet, but that would probably result in a few 18,17,16,9,8,7 (+5) characters if the total was lowered as well. With this method, you could also introduce the option of rolling. You'd get to roll until you had the total modifier which would give you the chance to have more even or odd numbers.
olshanski_home 01-19-06, 12:43 PM	I don't agree that a single high score is worth more.That is a perfectly valid opinion, and as such, your method makes 100% sense. You've embodied it well in a fair way that provides for organic-appearing stats. My opinion is slightly different, so I'll stick with point buy, for the time being. Thanks for the post.
Silver.Lynx 01-19-06, 01:09 PM	We keep comparing one character to another. if a 'lopsided' fighter were to go into the D&D world and try and survive, he'd probably die, in some fasion or another. If a 'well rounded' bard were to do the same, he'd still probably die, but he'd have a better chance of living. The thing is, were not comparing 1 char to another, were comparing groups of characters. Generally when a group faces a difficult situation, they face their best character against it, in some fasion or another. If they need to charm a cortiere, then usually the high CHA bard would do it, if they face some bad beastie, the fighter goes up front. If they need to know about some ancient ruins, they would generally say: "hey wizard, do you know anything about this?" and generally avoid even speaking the stupid ugly dwarf fighter. High stats in a group is better, it even says so in the DMG or MM somewhere when comparing elite stats vs normal stats. Yes i'll admit a well rounded char is better than a min maxed one, but a min maxed group of chars is better than a well rounded group of chars
Mirage_1 01-19-06, 01:22 PM	13, 16, 14, 12, 11, 10 = Total Modifier of 7 Only problem I see is math, but looks great