Has anyone ever created a "point buy" for classes?

[heavyfuel]

This is for 3.5/PF, btw.

What I imagined is something akin to the Generic Classes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm).

You start with a really horrible chassis. D4, 1/2 BAB, poor Fort, Refx, and Will, 2+int skill points, 2 class skills, and zero class features.

But then, you can buy better chassis and class features, much like you buy ability scores in Point Buy. So, for example, if you want to raise your d4 to a d10, you could spend 6 points. To get good Fort and Will costs you 10 points. Every additional class skill costs 1 point, and every skill point per level costs 1 point as well.

These numbers are meaningless, and just for the sake of example. But has anyone ever created something like this?

[JeenLeen]

One similar thing I've seen is rebuilding D&D into Mutants & Masterminds, which was done by Grod the Giant, one of the posters here. If you search for him, I'm pretty sure it's in the signature of his posts.

M&M is based on d20, so although the rules differ in some substantial ways, it does a similar job. At the least, it might give some inspiration or point-cost guidance for doing a pure D&D method.

[brian 333]

Many times. Point buy is a theme which recurrs in every edition. The more popular the edition, the more variants of such systems.

I personally dislike such systems: they are very efficient at creating munchkin characters lkke Minmax from T.Hunt's Goblins comic. They also tend to channel players into a single 'optimum build' mindset, which results in a player reusing a single character concept every time a character is generated.

In my opinion, random generation creates superior characters because it forces a player to optomize what is rolled up as opposed to simply recreating the same character with a different name. With a broader view of what can be done, the player becomes more versatile over time.

Redoing Krag the Barbarian/Fighter seven times doesn't really give the player insight into how the other classes work. Looking at a set of abilities and deciding how to make the best use of them allows the player to learn how rogues work, how wizards work, how clerics work, etc. Often the player discovers he enjoys playing a class he never tried because it was not on his list of optimum builds.

I will give an example of this:

I almost exclusively played wizards at first because the rest of the players 'needed a wizard in the party'. I then forced the issue by showing up with a paladin. My little brother then was 'forced' to play the party wizard. He loved it. From that point on he began trying other classes, but he kept going back to wizard. Wizard/ thief, wizard/fighter, sorcerer. It was a long stretch from his halfling thief that he remade at least four times before trying his first wizard.

With a point buy system, and without my refusal to roll up yet another wizard, he would have simply kept recreating Perppin, his first AD&D character. (Yes, the character's name was both a horrid pun and a Tolkien reference. That was D&D in the early 80's.)

[nonsi]

.
Here's something I came across with a quick search (https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Point-Buy_Classes_(3.5e_Variant_Rule)).

[Grod_The_Giant]

One similar thing I've seen is rebuilding D&D into Mutants & Masterminds, which was done by Grod the Giant, one of the posters here. If you search for him, I'm pretty sure it's in the signature of his posts.

M&M is based on d20, so although the rules differ in some substantial ways, it does a similar job. At the least, it might give some inspiration or point-cost guidance for doing a pure D&D method.
If you want to go further down that path, check out True20-- it's a D&d-ish system by Green Ronin (the same company that did M&M) that includes custom class creation stuff.

The difficulty of doing something like that in 3.5 is that the range of abilities is so stupidly, wildly varied. Even leaving aside power levels, it's very much a system of custom abilities and synergies. There's no way you could make simple rules for how much things should cost.

[Bruno Carvalho]

Many times. Point buy is a theme which recurrs in every edition. The more popular the edition, the more variants of such systems.

I personally dislike such systems: they are very efficient at creating munchkin characters lkke Minmax from T.Hunt's Goblins comic. They also tend to channel players into a single 'optimum build' mindset, which results in a player reusing a single character concept every time a character is generated.


This is not a problem with point buy, per se, it is a problem with "build-based" systems in general and D&D in particular. D&D 3.PF, for example, does not uses point buy (or does that in a very limited fashion with stats) and yet heavily promotes the "munchkin" mindset.

[Nifft]

There was an AD&D class builder thingy, which allowed you to pay for features like Wizard spell casting and Fighter attack bonus and such by increasing the XP you'd pay for each level.

It was notable for being broken, even by AD&D standards.

[Anymage]

AD&D even did it twice. Once as a throwaway system in the DMG for people who wanted to make their own classes, and again after WOTC bought out the company in the Players Option books. Needless to say, both were rather easily broken.

3e is already point buy-ish, in that you mix and match pieces to get your build right. Allowing you to custom build base classes and then prestige classes to build off of them would just be begging for exploitation. If you wanted to create a system where everybody was locked into a class, that might work. You'd also have to fine tune costs for different spellcasting abilities, since spellcasting is that awesome. (How would you differentiate between a sorcerer's ability to pick freely from the spell list, vs. a warmage's fixed thematic list?) Once you get rid of multiclassing/PRCing and mangle the spell system, I wonder why you'd be sticking with a 3e base.

[Quarian Rex]

Eclipse: The Codex (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/51255/Eclipse-The-Codex-Persona-Shareware) is what you're looking for. Possibly the most comprehensive take on d20 point-buy classes that I have ever seen. He even has a section at the back that applies the point-buy to the standard classes and they actually line up pretty well.

The book is also chock-full of unique abilities and interesting options. The author's website also includes a lot of supplemental material for the system as well. Echoing some of the sentiments above, point-buy can easily be abused so know your players well and/or lay some ground rules for character creation (minimum values for skills/saves/etc.).

Check out The Practical Enchanter (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/51242/The-Practical-Enchanter?src=newest) as well. It takes a lot of the unique abilities from Eclipse and converts them into feats and spells for a more traditional 3.P game along with expanding on so... very... much. An incredibly comprehensive tome that I've incorporated into the core of my games. Both books are of staggeringly good quality and buying the non-shareware versions is some of the best money I've ever spent.

[ngilop]

I did this a while ago (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?317380-Point-cost-for-building-a-class)

not sure how equivalent or not it is to being balanced so...


I most likely went too far in overvaluing spells.

[Temotei]

We recently had an entry in the Base Class Contest that might be similar to what you're looking for (two links): Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23069519&postcount=3) and here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=23137898&postcount=10).

[inuyasha]

I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned it yet, but there's a PDF called the Class Construction Engin (http://rumkin.com/reference/dnd/media/classconstruction.pdf)e that's been floating around for a while. I used it ages and ages ago to mess around, but I couldn't tell you if anything it produced was particularly balanced.