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Ditto
2007-01-21, 04:02 PM
I'm wondering if there is a standard way to compute point buy values under 8. Do you just go -1/-1 all the way, as 7=-1, 6=-2, or does it start scaling more steeply at some point?

Yakk
2007-01-21, 04:16 PM
There is no standard way.

I'd do:
4: -2
6: -1
8: 0

Practically, once you have chosen to ignore a stat, dropping it even more doesn't punish you nearly so much in enough situations.

(ie, a warrior with 8 and 4 int gets the same skill points/level. A wizard, using 2 HP for d4 hd, gets the same HP with 8 and 4 con. Etc.)

Ditto
2007-01-21, 06:48 PM
Any other thoughts?

although
2007-01-21, 06:58 PM
I'd do:
4: -2
6: -1
8: 0

Practically, once you have chosen to ignore a stat, dropping it even more doesn't punish you nearly so much in enough situations.

(ie, a warrior with 8 and 4 int gets the same skill points/level. A wizard, using 2 HP for d4 hd, gets the same HP with 8 and 4 con. Etc.)
I disagree here; a stat of 8 or 9 is an inconvenience, but as any stat is lowered beyond that point, it should become crippling.

A fighter with an 8 intelligence is a bit dull-witted or hidebound. The one with 4 int, though, should be played as disastrously stupid; he will miss the point of conversations, have trouble remembering plans (or knowing when to change a plan because circumstances have changed), and will generally be a liability to his friends more often than an asset. (Anyone else remember those old Groo the Warrior comics?)

Similarly, someone with a charisma of 8 is unscintillating and forgettable. Someone with a charisma of 4 is a walking social disaster area, and will earn such scorn and derision that people will end up thinking less of the whole party just because they're associated with that unlikable schmuck.

And a character with any physical stat of 4 will have a hell of a hard time dealing with the day-to-day physical hardships of adventuring (except possibly for a small or tiny character with a low strength).

If a player understands the implications of such low stats, I would go ahead and let them use the scale 7 = -1, 6 = -2, etc...but I would expect them to play the character as someone with a very serious weakness. If their low-intelligence fighter acted like a competent and mentally normal person but just had fewer skill points, then they'd take serious roleplaying penalties to XP. If they persisted in playing that way, I would eventually ask them to rewrite or retire the character.

Incidentally, a couple of my favorite characters from past campaigns have had high intelligence and charisma but abysmal wisdom. The main price they paid for their low wis scores wasn't in will saves or spot checks; it was the fact that they were constantly launching impulsive, poorly-planned schemes, then trying to improvise their way out of the resulting mess.

Saph
2007-01-21, 07:06 PM
What Although said. Have you looked up what, say, a Strength of 4 really means? A load of 14 pounds is enough to encumber you. You'd be barely strong enough to carry your own clothes!

And as for what a mental stat of 4 would be - good grief. A friend of mine once rolled up a 2nd ed D&D character and ended up with a Cha of 3. Being an enthusiastic roleplayer, he didn't think that just having a bad personality would be enough to represent that, so he added some 'refinements' like making the character smell hideous and be ugly enough to scare an ogre, along with a few odious personal habits. The resulting creation was like the social equivalent of a nuclear waste zone.

So I'd do 1 extra point for each point you go below 8. You'll be earning it . . .

- Saph

mikeejimbo
2007-01-21, 07:28 PM
Similarly, someone with a charisma of 8 is unscintillating and forgettable. Someone with a charisma of 4 is a walking social disaster area, and will earn such scorn and derision that people will end up thinking less of the whole party just because they're associated with that unlikable schmuck.

My character has a charisma of 8 but the group thinks of him more like the latter.

It's a weird group though. Our ogre has the highest Cha.

Deepblue706
2007-01-21, 08:10 PM
I sometimes do this. Seems to make the most sense if you follow the pattern used while going upward...which is +1 point cost for every +1 modifier of previous stat point, (minimum 1), as you increase the stat.

Let's take a look at the standard system...

8 = 0 points
9 = 1 point (minimum 1, as stated above)
10 = 2 points (again, minimum increase is 1)
and so on...
14 = 6 points
15 = BAM! 8 points.

- 15 is the first stat, as you go upward, to have a preceding stat that yields a +2 modifier.
- 16 costs 10 points, which is 2 more than a 15 (yields a +2).
- 17 costs 13 points, which is 3 more than 16 (yields a +3).

I figured going downward should follow the same pattern, but using the negatives to yield more points values, in return.

The stat to come after 7 is 8 (yields a -1 modifier), therefore, give back 1 point for a 7.

The stat to come after 6 is 7 (yields a -2 modifier), therefore, give back 2 more points (or 3, overall) to make it a 6.

And so on.

Maclav
2007-01-22, 07:38 AM
Allowing points back for going down is a recipe for disaster.

daggaz
2007-01-22, 07:47 AM
Just wanted to add about the low stats...

They make you horribly exposed to poisons and various ability draining spells and abilities. Hitting zero in most stats will leave your character totally helpless, even catatonic or in a coma, or in the case of Con, outright dead.

Temporary damage is bad enough (you would be lucky to even survive the encounter), but permanent damage would be downright maiming.


Playing anything with less than an 8 always makes me very wary.

MrNexx
2007-01-22, 07:48 AM
You could do a complete recalc, and try using something like Earthdawn's chart. They had a 66 point buy, on the following chart

2 +3
3 +2
4 +1
5 0
6 1
7 2
8 3
9 4
10 5
11 6
12 8
13 10
14 13
15 16
16 19
17 21
18 23

Athenodorus
2007-01-22, 08:40 AM
Allowing points back for going down is a recipe for disaster.

Yeah, but point buy makes it difficult to play a character with a major "flaw" as it is. (Meaning character sheet, stat based, not simply roleplayed flaw.)

Ditto
2007-01-22, 09:13 AM
I would never reach that hard to give my Gnome a 4 Str just for roleplaying fun, but I'm playing a creature with LA bonuses. When you have a +8 to Wis and it's your dump stat, taking a 6 would be fine with me over and 8. Give me another two points to spend elsewhere. I was curious if there was an existing standard for it, or at least one people have used regularly.

Indon
2007-01-22, 09:14 AM
I'd give one point per two points of reduced stat below 8, probably. That's to allow for heavy flavor characters without encouraging it.

And if a character has 6 in a stat, it should probably be for flavor. Not that I'm one to talk, I've played my share of three-in-a-stat characters, but I roll poorly.

Stephen_E
2007-01-22, 09:42 AM
I'd use
7 costs -1pt
6 costs -2pt
5 costs -4pt
4 costs -6pt
3 costs -9pt

With each further increase in negative modifier adding +1 pt to the incremental; step cost.

The quick and dirty way to check a points cost for killing a score is you run a few examples.
a) Drop one score to 3, that allows you 4 stats at 14 and 1 at 16.
b) Drop two scores to 3, two at 18, + 11 & 12.
c) 3, 3, 16, 16, 16, 17.

Now if these sorts of stat scores shout "Broken character" at you then obviously the bonus points are two high.

To those who think that scores of 3 aren't really a problem -
Str 3 - 10lbs is the max light load for a M character. The clothing on your backs free, but the smallest bag of holding is 15lbs. 10 days Iron rations is 10lbs.

Dex 3 - This is possibly the easiest to live with, so long as you don't mind been a Fighter who can't make a relex save if his life depended on it, and has poor AC.

Con 3 - Have your next character ready for the 1st session. You may need it.

Int 3 - no skill points unless you're a thief/scout and your GM should penalise you if you don't play your character as significantly retarded. You probably can't speak very well and have trouble getting all but the simplest ideas across to other people.

Wis 3 - Lets just say, making will saves is difficult, unless you're a Wizard. This doesn't stop you thinking up smart and clever plans, but your ability to follow them is apallingly bad, and they tend to have crucial bits missed out. I had a PC with Wis 3. Amongst his highlights was coming up with a clever plan to draw out a monster from his cave for a ambush, and getting impatient and attacking it just before the trap was triggered, and feeding the party magic mushroom stew because with his Con of 20 he'd never had problems (try fighting a marauding party of slavers while most of the party are either sick or halucinating. This should be the sort of thing you come to expect with Wis 3.

Cha 3 - While this doesn't actually mean you gross peole out (although that can be a symptom) but it does mean that only those who know you well will pay attention to you, and even they have to make an effort not to get distracted. Even when chopping people with that big axe you'll struggle to get anyone to surrender. While under optimal circumstances you can be terrifying, you're just give of such lame vibrations that people would be embarrased to surrender to you.

I've played Stats of 3 or 4 in Str, Dex, Wis and Char myself. I've seen Con 3 played once (it was Birthright where area effect sorcery, or indeed any sorcery is rare).

As for the suggestion that once you get into the below 6 region it doesn't make any difference how low, four words - Stat Buffs, ability damage.
It's a lot easier to pull a Stat of 5 upto no penalty than a Stat of 3. If ability damage reduces any ability (other than Con) to 0 you're helpless.

Stephen

Maclav
2007-01-22, 09:57 AM
Yeah, but point buy makes it difficult to play a character with a major "flaw" as it is. (Meaning character sheet, stat based, not simply roleplayed flaw.)

If you want a flaw, you could voluntarily lower your score. All having a point return for lowering the score does is encourage minmaxing. It encourages further dump stating by those inclined to do so.

To make it worse, and to pick on our lovely dump stat Chr... just how many sources of Chr damage are there? Most of poisons target str, dex or con. Most spells do too.

Person_Man
2007-01-22, 10:04 AM
I generally use an 80 point buy system, where 1 point is equal to one point. For example, a Dwarf Fighter may have:

Str 18, Dex 14, Con 20, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 4 = 80 points

This encourages the players to have at least one outstanding stat and one dump stat. My players are also well aware that I make good use of poison and ability draining magic, and that I require them to roleplay their stats. So if they want a 4 in Cha that's fine, but expect to be incapacitated once in a while and expect to have a hard time when you're by yourself and need to Bluff your way past some guards, and so forth.

Yakk
2007-01-22, 11:52 AM
Int 3 - no skill points unless you're a thief/scout and your GM should penalise you if you don't play your character as significantly retarded. You probably can't speak very well and have trouble getting all but the simplest ideas across to other people.

Min 1 skill point/level.

squishycube
2007-01-22, 12:01 PM
I don't think the worst min/maxers should be rewarded this way. From 8 downwards I would not give more then 1 point back for each ability point dropped.

mikeejimbo
2007-01-22, 12:08 PM
I would never reach that hard to give my Gnome a 4 Str just for roleplaying fun, but I'm playing a creature with LA bonuses. When you have a +8 to Wis and it's your dump stat, taking a 6 would be fine with me over and 8. Give me another two points to spend elsewhere. I was curious if there was an existing standard for it, or at least one people have used regularly.

May I ask what creature that is? If I was playing a creature with a +8 Wis, I would so be a Cleric.

Actually, I would be a Cleric with just about anything.

MetalKelt
2007-01-22, 12:11 PM
I think the feasbility of doing this is greatly dependent on the people playing. It can be open for abuse, but it can also open the door to very interesting roll playing.

Most memorably, in a game I was once playing, we went with the old 4d6 drop the lowest, roll stats in order (can't choose where they go), then make you character from there (had to pick race before stats though). Our dwarven cleric ended up with a 4 dex. He decided to rollplay it as not simply very clumsy, but he had bad dex due to his extreme weight problem. Whenever he increased his dex stat, he "lost weight", and knew prescisely how much he lost as he claculated that he would reach average dwarven weight at 10 dex.

The party had to compensate for this in some interesting ways. Most common was, "We all have our horses, did someone get a cart for the cleric?"

Stephen_E
2007-01-22, 06:03 PM
I don't think the worst min/maxers should be rewarded this way. From 8 downwards I would not give more then 1 point back for each ability point dropped.

It depends what you consider the worst min/maxers are. The min/maxers who create PC very strong in one area, but with a glaring weakness in another are quite workable within a party. Indeed they encourage a cooperative approach to adventuring because they rely on other party members to cover their weaknesses. The DM can also provide threats to them that aren't to dangerous for the rest of the party. The min/maxers who try and play no weaknesses and`slowly develop their strengths (the "I won't die" crowd) are IMHO more of a problem for partys and DMs. Anything that actually threntens them risks TPK, and they often contribute little to the party until quite high levels. But these players don't use dump stats (unless hey're Druids in Wildshape, and that's a problem with the way Wildshape/Polymorth works).

Stephen

Stephen_E
2007-01-22, 06:09 PM
To make it worse, and to pick on our lovely dump stat Chr... just how many sources of Chr damage are there? Most of poisons target str, dex or con. Most spells do too.

Psionic Ego Whip. Perfect for taking down Low Charisma creatures.

Re: the 1 skill point minimum. I should've made myself clear. I consider 1 skill point a level to be nothing.

Stephen

Ditto
2007-01-23, 01:30 PM
Yeah, one still point is worthless to scouts/rogues/bards, as indicated, but even for anyone else, why bother?

I'm play a Couatl in Revenge of the Forgotten Remnant (pbp starting in a thread near you, now!). We sort of figured out the racial adjustments backwardly, but say you were playing a pixie. You play a Sorcerer and could afford to drop Dex or Int a little in order to top out your Cha (With a +8 and +6, respectively). In such cases, when min-maxing leaves your dump stat at a 12 or 14 instead of 16, it shouldn't be a huge concern for the character/party/DM to deal with.