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MariettaGecko
2007-12-17, 01:05 PM
So I keep hearing about various character generation methods, and I understand the ones which require dice. Those are simple. I think I understand the standard and hero spread. I don't quite understand how point buy works. When I was playing AD&D in college, one of my DMs set up an 84 point buy or something like that, with each ability score equal to the number of points put into it. Basically, if you just wanted to have 14s across the board, break it out to all the stats. For extraordinary strength, one point for each level (18/00 would cost 22 points, IIRC).

But around here, people mention much lower point buy numbers, which don't seem to make sense to me. Can someone educate me as to how this works? I'd go look on the D&D boards, but it seems that I have forgotten my password, and can't seem to get my account to log in properly.

Emperor Demonking
2007-12-17, 01:14 PM
It makes sense as 8 costs 0.
9=1
10=2
and so on unt
15=8
16=10
17=13
18=16

Mr. Friendly
2007-12-17, 01:15 PM
The method you describe from earlier days is not the same thing as conventional 3.X point buy. What you describe would now be called (the name escapes me) and point buy works differently.

In 3.X point buy, you start with all stats at 8 and then each point you raise it scales higher and higher. Up to 14 it costs 1 point/point. So for a 12 it would cost you 4 points, 14 would be 6. 15 and 16 cost 2 points per level, so they cost 8 and 10, respectively. 17 and 18 cost 3 per, so they cost 13 and 16, respectively.

So you see, in the "high powered" version (32 points) you could only have 2 18s and the rest would be 8s.

Sleet
2007-12-17, 01:52 PM
One important thing to note is that simply saying "84 point buy! Add up your scores!" makes racial ability adjustments irrelevant, and actively nerfs races with more numerous negatives than positives (such as half-orcs).

kamikasei
2007-12-17, 01:56 PM
Furthermore, note that the "Elite Array" of abilities (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) around which the game is supposedly balanced is a 25-point buy. This is the recommended value in the DMG for a power level in line with the books' assumptions.

You can play around with point buy here (http://invisiblecastle.com/help.py?p=buy).

Fenix_of_Doom
2007-12-17, 02:26 PM
The main problem I have with point buy is that 25 point is standard, but seems so weak, as does the elite array for that matter, I've never seen anyone roll as bad as a 25 point buy.

Even 32 point but isn't that "high-powered", roll one 18 and one 16 and four 11 and you have an 38 point built character, sure it doesn't allow you to dump your int and cha to 3 because you don't use them anyway(Icewind dale did this, it was quite ridiculous), but in the end every stat has it uses(even charisma gives you a bonus on a few skills:smallwink: ). Now it's true that rolling can create very weak characters too, but they get re-rolled so no one cares.

It also stupid that 15, which provides no direct bonus over 14 costs twice as much, same goes for 17, it would be much more logical if 16 and 18 would cost more. One or maybe tow odd scores wouldn't even be that bad, as items ore often add an odd number and at level 4 you get an extra point in one ability. beyond that, there is no good reason to get an odd number in any ability score.