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Yakk
2009-08-17, 01:25 PM
You start with (point buy) d6. You may want to inflate this, to take into account your inability to min/max characters.

You roll them. Each 1 represents a point buy of strength, each 2 con, each 3 dex, each 4 int, each 5 wis, each 6 cha.

You may pick up up to half of the dice and reroll them. Then you can pick up 5 less and reroll, then 5 less again and reroll, continuing until you cannot reroll.

At that point, you have to lock in any stats you purchased. Count up dice that are on 1s and look at your point buy chart. Buy the highest stat you can, then pick up the remaining d6s for later.

Repeat for each stat.

Now take the remaining d6s and roll them. See if you have enough points to buy a stat upgrade in any stat. If so, those d6s are burned for the stat upgrade.

Repeat until you are out of d6s, or there is no purchase you can make with your remaining d6s.

Sample go with this following point buy chart:

Cost chart:
8: 0 dice
10: 1 die
11: 2 dice
12: 3 dice
13: 4 dice
14: 7 dice
15: 8 dice
16: 10 dice
17: 12 dice
18: 16 dice

1: Str
2: Con
3: Dex
4: Int
5: Wis
6: Cha

and 30 dice.
3,2,2,6,2,2,4,6,1,1,3,4,3,6,4,2,2,5,6,3,5,5,6,1,5, 5,6,5,2,6

Grouped:
1,1,1
2,2,2,2,2,2,2
3,3,3,3
4,4,4
5,5,5,5,5,5
6,6,6,6,6,6,6

That's a lot of Con and Cha. Let's go for a con/cha character, and pick up the other dice (which happen to total to 15) and roll them again:
6,3,3,4,2,6,1,1,2,5,3,4,5,6,2

1,1
2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2
3,3,3
4,4
5,5
6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6

There are 9 dice that aren't 2s or 6s. So We'll pick those up, and leave the 2s and 6s alone:
1,6,3,6,5,5,1,4,3

1,1
2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2
3,3
4
5,5
6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6

6 is clearly winning. let's pick up the 1s, 4s and 5s:
6,1,4,2,2

1 -- 1
2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2 -- 12
3,3 -- 2
4 -- 1
-- 0
6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6 -- 13

Going back to our cost chart:

8: 0 dice
10: 1 die
11: 2 dice
12: 3 dice
13: 4 dice
14: 7 dice
15: 8 dice
16: 10 dice
17: 12 dice
18: 16 dice

we lock in stats as follows:
Str: 10
Con: 17
Dex: 11
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 17
with 1 die left over: (as Charisma had change)
5
which ups our wisdom:
Str: 10
Con: 17
Dex: 11
Int: 10
Wis: 10
Cha: 17
and we have a perfectly serviceable (in 4e at least) star-pact Warlock, or a Bard. Maybe a half-elf!

AgentPaper
2009-08-17, 04:58 PM
When your stat generation system is more complicated than figuring out your taxes, that should be a sign you're doing something wrong. :smallwink:

blazinghand
2009-08-17, 05:10 PM
So, the system you're suggesting is that you roll a bunch of d6s, and each 1 increases your str by 1 point buy, each 2 increases your dex by 1 point buy, etc.

This system seems interesting, but oddly complicated. If you want to add some randomness to the point buy system, maybe do something like give each player a 20 point buy, and add 1d6-1 to each score?

Nero24200
2009-08-17, 05:13 PM
Is there really much point to somthing like this? The only reason I can really see anyone using point-buy is because it provides characters which are more balanced in terms of their base attributes. Using dice to determine ability scores makes the characters more "organic" and "natural", but also allows the possibility of unbalanced PC's.

Combining both doesn't really capture the benifits of either.

AgentPaper
2009-08-17, 05:13 PM
Or better yet, let them use the point buy. If you want to have random stats, roll random stats. I don't see how this system is really any different from 4d6b3 for each stat, no swapping.

Yakk
2009-08-18, 03:43 PM
This gives you organic characters who are at least in some sense balanced against each other.

4d6+drop 1 can generate characters with high stats, or low stats -- it has lots of variance. With a random allotment of points, if the point buy system is indeed 'fair', you end up with every character being built to the same number of points, but with random strengths and weaknesses.

This was inspired by the quite neat ORE one-roll character system -- it works reasonably well in ORE.

The ability to cull dice and reroll them is there to increase the variance in point allocation between attributes. Without that system, you'd end up with characters that rarely have a high attribute -- with it, as you can see, you can get reasonably high allocations to one attribute.

AgentPaper
2009-08-18, 04:30 PM
This gives you organic characters who are at least in some sense balanced against each other.

4d6+drop 1 can generate characters with high stats, or low stats -- it has lots of variance. With a random allotment of points, if the point buy system is indeed 'fair', you end up with every character being built to the same number of points, but with random strengths and weaknesses.

This was inspired by the quite neat ORE one-roll character system -- it works reasonably well in ORE.

The ability to cull dice and reroll them is there to increase the variance in point allocation between attributes. Without that system, you'd end up with characters that rarely have a high attribute -- with it, as you can see, you can get reasonably high allocations to one attribute.

Or how about this: You roll 3d6b3, figure out how much that costs in PB, and if it's out of a certain range (say, 25-30) you have to pick one of three stats (the three highest if you rolled too high, the three lowest if you rolled too low) and re-roll it. If you roll too low, you have more chances to roll X stat how high you want it. If you roll too high, you get to pick which high stat you don't care about enough to re-roll.

Or even more simple, roll 3d6b3, and then force players to buy or sell points to meet the desired PB total. If you're too high, you can only sell points, and if you're too low, you can only buy points.

Anyways, the system might be awesome for creating interesting characters, but there's just too much math and rolling and potential for mistakes (and "mistakes" :smallamused:) for it to be a system I would want to use in an actual campaign.

Draz74
2009-08-18, 08:22 PM
I like it. I think, with the amount of rerolling that's being granted, all the characters will end up just a couple points from where they would have ended up under standard point buy, so I don't think it affects balance much. If I'm not in a hurry, I wouldn't mind using this with a group to make the characters feel more "organic."

dragoonsgone
2009-08-18, 09:12 PM
Ok I wanna try this as well.

30 dice

6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6
5,5,5,5,5,5
4,4,4,4,4,4
3,3,3,3
2,2,2,2
1,1

Well im gonna go with Cha and Int since cha and wis are same defense. Keep 1 Five to make it only 15 rerolled

ok second roll got another 6 and 4 4's
puts me at 9 6's and 10 4's 1 5
reroll everything else

3rd roll
3 6's
3 2's
3 3's
1 1

Keep the 6's and the 2 of the 2's for con
12 6's 10 4's 2 2's and 1 5

2 6's
1
2
5
which puts me at 14 6's, 2 5's, 10 4's, 0 3's 3 2's, 1 1

Str 10
Con 12
Dex 8
Int 16
Wis 11
Cha 17

with no Rerolls
Looks like a Bard or a Lock to me.
Probably a Tiefling Lock which put me at

Str 10
Con 12
Dex 8
Int 18
Wis 11
Cha 19

A 24 pt buy too. Its interesting Yakk but so hard to explain that I doubt I ever do it, though it would be fun in a group that loves to roll dice.

Elfin
2009-08-18, 09:22 PM
This seems rather needlessly complicated. But if that's your cup of tea, go for it.