Friendly reminder - point buy and array removes in-party stat swings

[Albions_Angel]

We all know this, but just a friendly reminder inspired by what I am currently hearing.

Point buy and array stat systems wont make the game more balanced as a whole, but it will generally ensure all the players start at roughly the same point (give or take) and are actually able to realise their own class potential.

Why this post? No real reason other than the fact that I am listening to my girlfriends regular wednesday 5e game (but the fact its 5e is largely irrelevant). Same group as always, but one of them is having their first time in the DM seat, and wrote himself into a corner, after the party did something unexpected and the DM reacted without thinking and accidentally TPKed at level 1, causing him to retcon the deaths into captures and put the PCs into a jail/arena. Problem was, this arena is located somewhere that skips several sessions of development, including the point where they should get a level up. Because of his inexperience, he doesnt know what to do and has now run 3 sessions of them being dragged into the arena, made to fight, then thrown back in their cells. Attempts to escape are met with DM plot armour. Well, since this has happened, one player has lost 3 characters to the arena alone, while another has died twice.

Half the problem is they, as a group, refuse point buy or array. Roll only. And its left that one player severely disadvantaged each time. His new stats, for next weeks character, have the highest roll as a 10, then the next highest as an 8, after adjustment. He is just getting pounded every time.

If you are having fun, by all means roll, but its swingy and can lead to situations where one member of the party is crazy under or over powered at low levels (also, dont DM your players into impossible to get out of plot holes that everyone ends up hating, but thats another issue).

[Elricaltovilla]

Pretty sure that even in 5e that guy's stat rolls qualify for a free reroll...

But I agree, rolled stats are a sacred cow that needs to be taken out to pasture.

[Biggus]

I like rolled stats myself, but I certainly agree that you need to be able to reroll them if they're bad across the board. Having a character with one very poor stat can lead to some very entertaining roleplaying, but a character who isn't good at anything is no fun at all.

[RNightstalker]

Or you could just simplify the rolling process. Nobody want to have negative attribute modifiers? Do what we do for generation in our game, 10+D8 7x, keep the best 6. It saves a lot of time and calculating.

[Hiro Quester]

I used to play (decades ago) with an AD&D group that insisted on the drama and excitement and luck of rolling stats. What it usually meant was that a player rolled, got disappointing scores, and had to play that unfortunately hampered character.

What they usually did was try very hard to get killed, so they could try again.

It's no fun for anyone playing in a game like that. For anyone in the party. It's hard to take your role in a fight with four kobolds seriously, when your party cleric is trying to get the kobolds to murder him.

And what everyone ends up with is something close to what you'd get from point buy anyway.

Except for that one guy who rolled extra-lucky and rolled three high stats; he plays like his character is made of glass, because if this one gets killed he won't be so lucky again for ages.

I was that guy, because we also rolled % dice for your race; a high roll meant more options to choose from. I rolled in the high 90s and could play a sapphire dragon that could take humanoid forms. That character was one of the most paranoid and self-protective characters I have ever played (which hampers role-playing a different way).

It's much much much more fun --for everyone in the party-- when you can say "I want to make a character like such and so", and then just select a race, class, and distribution of ability scores from point buy to make the foundation of that fun-to-play character viable from level 1.

[Biggus]

Nobody want to have negative attribute modifiers?

Well, that's where you're wrong. Some of the most fun characters I've ever played/ played with were fun in large part precisely because they sucked at something. There's certainly entertainment to be had in playing a superhero who has no weaknesses, but there's also plenty in playing one who's an utter moron or has zero social skills.



It's no fun for anyone playing in a game like that. For anyone in the party. It's hard to take your role in a fight with four kobolds seriously, when your party cleric is trying to get the kobolds to murder him.

Except for that one guy who rolled extra-lucky and rolled three high stats; he plays like his character is made of glass, because if this one gets killed he won't be so lucky again for ages.

I have literally never seen a player do either of these things.



It's much much much more fun --for everyone in the party-- when you can say "I want to make a character like such and so", and then just select a race, class, and distribution of ability scores from point buy to make the foundation of that fun-to-play character viable from level 1.

I know I'm in a minority on these boards, but the point-buy versus rolled stats thing is a matter of personal taste. Point buy is NOT objectively better, it is preferable to a certain type of player.

[martixy]

We like rolling for stats - that's why we roll them two or maybe even 3 times. That also removes in-party stat swings. Or lessens them to the point no one complains.

[Crake]

Well, that's where you're wrong. Some of the most fun characters I've ever played/ played with were fun in large part precisely because they sucked at something. There's certainly entertainment to be had in playing a superhero who has no weaknesses, but there's also plenty in playing one who's an utter moron or has zero social skills.

Nightstalker's statement wasn't a claim of fact, it was posing a hypothetical situation where the players at the table don't want to play with negatives, as indicated by the question mark at the end of his sentence, which he then followed up with a potential solution to said scenario.


I have literally never seen a player do either of these things.

I have both seen it and done it.


I know I'm in a minority on these boards, but the point-buy versus rolled stats thing is a matter of personal taste. Point buy is NOT objectively better, it is preferable to a certain type of player.

I would say it's less about personal taste, and more about table game style. If you're playing a beer and pretzels one shot where you have no real attachment to a character, rolling just adds another dimension to the random fun, but if you're running a long, in depth campaign, and you can't realise your character concept because you're hampered by poor stats, then that is an objective issue with rolling.

Edit: There's also a myriad of ways you can roll that give players more control over the numbers they get. My personal favourite is 24d6, drop lowest 6, and arrange dice into groups of 3.

[False God]

While what you say is true, what also removed stat swings is a DM who ensures his players don't get lame stats. Your player rolls 10/8/5/6/12/10? Let them reroll. Let them do it again. Who cares? Better to reroll them now to produce a survivable character the player will enjoy and get to play for a couple sessions, rather than wait till they have to reroll anyway because their stats meant they suck.

The issue here is not the rolling method, it's the DM. They're clearly drowning and don't know how to get out.

First: he needs to sit down with the players and redo their stats. If the character is alive, huzzah, all that arena fighting made them faster, stronger and clever-er!
Second: he wraps up the arena by having their captors sell them off to a private individual, who just so happens to be traveling back through where they were captured, where said individual is conveniently attacked and the party is able to break loose.

The party is now toughened up and the game is back on track!

But when you're drowning, it's hard to see the shore.

[Fizban]

Indeed. One of the major problems of my last group was that the other highly proficient character builder was extremely sensitive to being overshadowed- and also rolled terrible stats, while trying to build extremely versatile non-magical characters. Especially compared to mine (which may be the fault of my dice, which roll suspiciously large numbers of 6's, but he rolled bad even on those). I had even specifically told the DM that we should go point buy, but they disagreed, so we rolled anyway, two games a row. The problem was naturally exacerbated by effectively free level adjustments and the homebrew classes I was playing having been balanced by MAD.

I would also point out that despite often presenting rolling as the default method, the game actually expects point buy in the non-Oldschool editions. The 3.5 test characters all used the elite array, which is based on the given standard 25 point buy, 5e has bounded ability scores in addition to higher stat gains that let you reach those caps sooner, and I'm pretty sure 4e had similar expectations. The simple fact is that if whether you use high powered rolling, lucky rolling, high point buy, or even modest point buy with huge racial bonuses, if you're getting more than a +2 or +3 ability score mod at 1st level, you're more powerful than the game really expects. And you can easily tell how much that is valued both by looking at the level adjustments given to most templates and races with +4 ability modifiers- as well as the simple fact that a starting 20 str means +2 attack and +2 damage over normal, literally worth at least +1 level of a combat class, or the number of feats it takes a spellcaster to replicate the effects of a higher stat (until setting book feats just make +2 spellcasting ability score its own feat :smallsigh:).

Even so, at least with 25 points you actually pay for a starting 18, with all your other stat modifiers. Which again, I don't think people seriously realize the value of. +1, +2, or even +3 to basically all rolls, defenses, and ability based resources thanks to uber stats vs what a 25 point buy would have? It's literally right there on the page in exact numbers how much more powerful you are, convertible into levels, feats, magic items, or anything else, and people wonder why normal monsters can't challenge their 40 point buy "LA buyoff" characters even when they're "low-op."

Anyway. The first and worst problem for rolling is the inter-party imbalance, and yeah, I don't know why so many people cling to it. It's got hazing ritual problems all over it too, as some will respond to the question of "But what if you were stuck playing the game with bad rolls," by saying they already have and everyone should have to deal with it too. Even moreso in 5e where there's barely anything to recalculate or change about a character based on their ability scores, and the PHB explicitly says in the main generation paragraph that if you don't like random generation you can use the elite array. Seriously: point buy is listed as a separate variant, and the first line said you generate ability scores randomly, but in the same paragraph as random generation it straight up says you can just not do that. A DM forcing you to roll in 5e is actually changing the rules given in the PHB.

[Crake]

Indeed. One of the major problems of my last group was that the other highly proficient character builder was extremely sensitive to being overshadowed- and also rolled terrible stats, while trying to build extremely versatile non-magical characters. Especially compared to mine (which may be the fault of my dice, which roll suspiciously large numbers of 6's, but he rolled bad even on those). I had even specifically told the DM that we should go point buy, but they disagreed, so we rolled anyway, two games a row. The problem was naturally exacerbated by effectively free level adjustments and the homebrew classes I was playing having been balanced by MAD.

I would also point out that despite often presenting rolling as the default method, the game actually expects point buy in the non-Oldschool editions. The 3.5 test characters all used the elite array, which is based on the given standard 25 point buy, 5e has bounded ability scores in addition to higher stat gains that let you reach those caps sooner, and I'm pretty sure 4e had similar expectations. The simple fact is that if whether you use high powered rolling, lucky rolling, high point buy, or even modest point buy with huge racial bonuses, if you're getting more than a +2 or +3 ability score mod at 1st level, you're more powerful than the game really expects. And you can easily tell how much that is valued both by looking at the level adjustments given to most templates and races with +4 ability modifiers- as well as the simple fact that a starting 20 str means +2 attack and +2 damage over normal, literally worth at least +1 level of a combat class, or the number of feats it takes a spellcaster to replicate the effects of a higher stat (until setting book feats just make +2 spellcasting ability score its own feat :smallsigh:).

Even so, at least with 25 points you actually pay for a starting 18, with all your other stat modifiers. Which again, I don't think people seriously realize the value of. +1, +2, or even +3 to basically all rolls, defenses, and ability based resources thanks to uber stats vs what a 25 point buy would have? It's literally right there on the page in exact numbers how much more powerful you are, convertible into levels, feats, magic items, or anything else, and people wonder why normal monsters can't challenge their 40 point buy "LA buyoff" characters even when they're "low-op."

Anyway. The first and worst problem for rolling is the inter-party imbalance, and yeah, I don't know why so many people cling to it. It's got hazing ritual problems all over it too, as some will respond to the question of "But what if you were stuck playing the game with bad rolls," by saying they already have and everyone should have to deal with it too. Even moreso in 5e where there's barely anything to recalculate or change about a character based on their ability scores, and the PHB explicitly says in the main generation paragraph that if you don't like random generation you can use the elite array. Seriously: point buy is listed as a separate variant, and the first line said you generate ability scores randomly, but in the same paragraph as random generation it straight up says you can just not do that. A DM forcing you to roll in 5e is actually changing the rules given in the PHB.

I have definitedly noticed this as well, and just shake my head when all the other DMs in my play group do egregious point buy, or let players roll until they practically hit 18s across the board, because "high stats are fun", and then wonder why they have trouble making balanced encounters.

[Yogibear41]

If your highest stat is 15 or lower congratulations you are an npc.

[aerilon]

I honestly prefer rolling-as-default. But with a caveat. Yes, anyone can be born with a disadvantage, stupid, clumsy, dimwitted, frail, etc. I'm okay with that. But in most games the PCs are meant to be exceptional in some way, they're meant to be heroes. And, okay, otherwise average people can maybe rise to exceptional heights - especially in certain classes that aren't especially demanding of your ability scores - but I have trouble with PCs being below average.

To be clear, I don't mean having an attribute (or two) below average. I mean you rolled 4 stats below a 10, and your highest attribute is an 11. My feeling is that if the player's rolls are objectively worse than a commoner/expert NPC, or if I add up their point value as if they'd been purchased in point buy and they don't add up to a certain baseline I've set as the benchmark, there is a problem. When I run games and that happens, I let the player switch to point-buy.

[Segev]

Most people I play with these days use what I call the "matrix method." It starts with 4k3d6 (roll four d6, keep the best 3), rolled in order, 36 times. (Generally, six columns of six values rolled in order.) Then, choose the row, column, or diagonal you like the best.

Variants on this include having one matrix from which everyone chooses their stats (and, yes, you can pick the same set another player did, if you like).

It CAN result in bad rolls, but rarely does, and there's frequently-enough some sort of trade-off between that One High Stat you want and having generically good stats.



Another way to do it, if you don't mind high-powered stats, is to roll a stat line, and then let the player choose to change it however he likes. This sounds like a waste of time, I know: why not just let him pick whatever stats he wants? The rolled stats are there to give him a sort of "base line," so that if he has any "don't care" stats, he can drop a rolled value into them, preserving some of the feel of random rolling.

[MultitudeMan]

I thought the solution to poor rolls in 3.5 was simply to play a druid. Eggynack's handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?439991-Being-Everything-Eggynack-s-Comprehensive-Druid-Handbook) seems pretty confident that you could get away with rolling nothing higher than an 11 and still be a decently functional druid, so why not be one with nature for a campaign, and save your MAD builds for the time you roll two 17's and a 16!

[rel]

druid or warlock.
A 3.5 warlock can be built to account for even the most egregious stat blocks.