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Thinker
2008-03-03, 09:05 PM
I am currently running a 25-point buy Iron Kingdoms campaign and I came up with a houserule for leveling with point buy. Every level gained I award 1 point-buy attribute point, plus 1 point at level 1. In addition, any increase above 18 (19 to 20, 23 to 24, etc) costs 4 points.

For example Sam the level 1 Rogue has Str 13 Dex 14 Con 12 Int 14 Wis 10 Cha 11. Sam gains a level and thus gains a point-buy point. He could raise his Str, Con, Wis, or Cha by 1 (the point-buy cost) or save it and wait another level and raise his Dex or Int by 1 (2 point-buy points).

I feel that this house-rule helps MAD characters and encourages more well-rounded stats at character creation as it will be easier to raise lower stats to be higher. The effect for SAD characters remains the same as 1 attribute point per 4 levels.

Any thoughts on this house rule?

CasESenSITItiVE
2008-03-03, 09:09 PM
i like it, it's a nice way to bring ability scores up evenly i think

incidentally, do they gain normal ability score increases on top of that?

Thinker
2008-03-03, 09:13 PM
i like it, it's a nice way to bring ability scores up evenly i think

incidentally, do they gain normal ability score increases on top of that?

No. This completely replaces the ability score increase every 4 levels.

Theodoxus
2008-03-03, 09:13 PM
Sounds decent - I don't know anything about Iron Kingdoms, but such a progression would seem to work well in a low/non-magic campaign. I might use it with Iron Heroes, using the standard point buy rather than the IH base point buy of 10s. Or maybe give the players the choice...

Indon
2008-03-03, 10:06 PM
I love it.

EvilElitest
2008-03-03, 11:34 PM
Good luck
from
EE

Roderick_BR
2008-03-04, 06:44 AM
I like it. I was looking for a way to make stats increase more interesting, and I think this work. It'll make some characters stronger in 20 levels, but I wanted something like that anyway, since I was going to use StarWars Saga's stats advencement.
Question: The bonus is added to the original base stats, right? Before applying racial and magic bonuses, inclusive from books/wishes?
I agree it works better in low magic settings. Since my currently group is playing an all warrior party campaign, it fits well.

Ceaon
2008-03-04, 07:00 AM
Seems okay. I like the fact it keeps the point buy costs.
If people are looking for another stat increase system, I developed a system based on Fire Emblem.
Each stat is assigned a growth rate between 0 and 100. I mostly use a 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, 65 assignment. Every time a character levels up, you can do one of two things.

1. Roll a d%. If the result is below the growth rate, add one point to the corresponding stat.
2. Add the growth rate to a number, and each time this number reaches 100, add one point to the corresponding stat (so, for instance, a 55 growth rate would add a point about every two levels, and a 15 growth rate would add a point about every 7 levels).

This should probably replace the +2/+4/+6 stat items.

Sorry for trying to take the spotlight, TC, but when I saw this topic I thought it was rather pointless to start a new one.

warmachine
2008-03-04, 08:01 AM
Mathematically, can't fault the scheme. It does what you want and it can't be abused. Helping MAD over SAD encourages multiple options, making a character more fun to play. An elegent house rule.

Thinker
2008-03-04, 10:08 AM
I like it. I was looking for a way to make stats increase more interesting, and I think this work. It'll make some characters stronger in 20 levels, but I wanted something like that anyway, since I was going to use StarWars Saga's stats advencement.
Question: The bonus is added to the original base stats, right? Before applying racial and magic bonuses, inclusive from books/wishes?
I agree it works better in low magic settings. Since my currently group is playing an all warrior party campaign, it fits well.

Yes this is added to original base stats and is inclusive from books/wishes.

SilverClawShift
2008-03-04, 11:30 AM
I really like this, and I'm going to bring it up to my groups DM. It makes rounding out secondary stats very appealing compared to using your one precious increase each 4th level.

Dr Bwaa
2008-03-04, 11:33 AM
I also really like this; I will definitely use it in a campaign this summer

Methabroax
2008-03-04, 12:31 PM
Great fix. Let the SAD characters keep muddling along while the MAD characters go crazy with 14's across the board, muahahahhahhahaha. Personnally, i've always like more flexible characters. 3.5 punishes flexibility or specialty and this will go a long way to diminish that effect.

Methabroax

Fenix_of_Doom
2008-03-04, 12:41 PM
I like the general idea, but let's face it, it weakens almost all characters, if you implement this I'd suggest giving more points, this could be 2 points/4 levels or 1 point/2 levels or whatever you like.
Also, with this ruling people should be allowed to chose not to use all points at character creation.

Indon
2008-03-04, 12:43 PM
I like the general idea, but let's face it, it weakens almost all characters,

How could it weaken any character? The worst possible ratio you could get would be 4 levels per point - precisely what you would get without the houserule. All other rates are better (heck, you could raise a dump stat 4 points in those 4 levels if you liked!).

Fenix_of_Doom
2008-03-04, 12:45 PM
How could it weaken any character? The worst possible ratio you could get would be 4 levels per point - precisely what you would get without the houserule. All other rates are better (heck, you could raise a dump stat 4 points in those 4 levels if you liked!).

It seems I can't read then.

Person_Man
2008-03-04, 01:06 PM
I'm going to have to go against the consensus and say that I think its a bad idea.

There's nothing inherently better or more fun about playing characters with MAD. So there's no reason to encourage players to play them. If Rogues are underpowered in your group, I suggest that they spend 10 minutes on the optimization boards to improve them. Or they can play a similar but more powerful class (Psychic Rogue, Spellthief, Factotum, etc). There's no need to create a house rule just to favor one type of class over the other.

Also, having all of your PCs with all 18 stats (or something close to it) makes them all into Superman clones. Everyone will be strong, agile, hearty, smart, wise, and communicative. No one will be weak, clumsy, sickly, dumb, foolish, or repulsive. This takes away from roleplaying diversity. And it takes away from character role niche protection - everyone can be a more uniformly good at being a party face, meat shield, etc. No one will truly excel or suck at anything.

Anywho, I assume everyone will disagree with me. But I think my points are valid ones.

Indon
2008-03-04, 01:15 PM
There's nothing inherently better or more fun about playing characters with MAD.
I disagree here - I feel there is something inherently better about diverse mechanical options.


Also, having all of your PCs with all 18 stats (or something close to it) makes them all into Superman clones.
Though I think you have a good point here. While I don't think the 20 point buy from 20 levels of play would amount to very much superman-ousity, it's definitely enough to zero out any reasonably possible stat penalties with no significant mechanical consequence for using those points, even for a character who benefits immensely from a high primary stat.

However, this is basically the problem with point buy in general - being well-rounded is just easier, so it's encouraged. Characters who used point buy to get high stats initially probably won't just turn around right after and use their point buy points to round themselves out after the fact, while well-rounded characters are already well-rounded without any of what you speak of.

Thinker
2008-03-04, 01:16 PM
I'm going to have to go against the consensus and say that I think its a bad idea.

There's nothing inherently better or more fun about playing characters with MAD. So there's no reason to encourage players to play them. If Rogues are underpowered in your group, I suggest that they spend 10 minutes on the optimization boards to improve them. Or they can play a similar but more powerful class (Psychic Rogue, Spellthief, Factotum, etc). There's no need to create a house rule just to favor one type of classes over the other.

Also, having all of your PCs with all 18 stats (or something close to it) makes them all into Superman clones. Everyone will be strong, agile, hearty, smart, wise, and communicative. No one will be weak, clumsy, sickly, dumb, foolish, or repulsive. This takes away from roleplaying diversity. And it takes away from character role niche protection - everyone can be a more uniformly good at being a party face, meat shield, etc. No one will truly excel or suck at anything.

Anywho, I assume everyone will disagree with me. But I think my points are valid ones.

Your points are valid, but not necessarily so for my campaign. The one I am running is a 25-pt buy. At character creation a character's stats would look something like this:

SAD:
Str 9
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 16
Wis 10
Cha 8

MAD:
Str 8
Dex 14
Con 13
Int 14
Wis 10
Cha 14

With an additional 20 points over 20 levels the SAD's Int will reach 21. It would be 10 levels before a single of the MAD's stats reached 18.

This house-rule was also specifically designed to be used with the Iron Kingdoms campaign setting. There are no psionics. Healing magic has consequences. Conjuration spells have consequences. In general, magic is thought of negatively. By-and-large stat boosters and other stock magic items don't exist or are very hard to find.

Tweekinator
2008-03-04, 04:58 PM
Wow, this rule looks great for use with point-buy. How would you implement differently(if at all) using the rolling, array, or other stat generation system?

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-04, 06:07 PM
I'm going to have to go against the consensus and say that I think its a bad idea.

There's nothing inherently better or more fun about playing characters with MAD. So there's no reason to encourage players to play them. If Rogues are underpowered in your group, I suggest that they spend 10 minutes on the optimization boards to improve them. Or they can play a similar but more powerful class (Psychic Rogue, Spellthief, Factotum, etc). There's no need to create a house rule just to favor one type of class over the other.

Except insofar as the rules already favour one type of class over another. MAD - currently - is considered something that causes a class to suck. It's not a balancing point, nobody says "wow, monks would totally rule if it wasn't for their MAD".


Also, having all of your PCs with all 18 stats (or something close to it) makes them all into Superman clones. Everyone will be strong, agile, hearty, smart, wise, and communicative. No one will be weak, clumsy, sickly, dumb, foolish, or repulsive. This takes away from roleplaying diversity. And it takes away from character role niche protection - everyone can be a more uniformly good at being a party face, meat shield, etc. No one will truly excel or suck at anything.

Anywho, I assume everyone will disagree with me. But I think my points are valid ones.

Those characters who choose to pump one stat above the others will excel at things, and suck at things. I sincerely doubt that everybody will pump every stat to 18 - or even to 12. The *reason* that point-buy works the way it does is because one very high stat is flat out better than two medium stats. IMO "Flat out better" should equate to "costs more points".

Riffington
2008-03-04, 09:35 PM
This is awesome. I can see minor issues if you start your campaigns at level 20... but fortunately, I don't do that :)

Dan_Hemmens
2008-03-05, 07:24 AM
This is awesome. I can see minor issues if you start your campaigns at level 20... but fortunately, I don't do that :)

Whichever level you start your campaigns at, it should wind up the same. It's just that instead of using "25 point buy + 5" you get a "45 point buy" which sounds like a lot until you remember that, for most people, those extra 20 points are just going to be used to buy a +5 anyway.

Roderick_BR
2008-03-05, 09:21 AM
Wow, this rule looks great for use with point-buy. How would you implement differently(if at all) using the rolling, array, or other stat generation system?
Roll, and then see how much points the character would have with his current array. I'd suggest against it as it usually turns into players comparing total points, and showing how the randomness can cause a lot of difference in points.
Hey. Bob's character has 20 points more than mine, it's almost twice what I have" "That's because you guys rolled, and he got two 18s" "I know, but I don't have even a 17. My character will suck". I've seen this type of complaint before :\

Riffington
2008-03-05, 08:43 PM
Whichever level you start your campaigns at, it should wind up the same. It's just that instead of using "25 point buy + 5" you get a "45 point buy" which sounds like a lot until you remember that, for most people, those extra 20 points are just going to be used to buy a +5 anyway.

Oh, not saying it's broken at any level. Just that if you're starting at low levels, then every time you level up you get whatever makes most sense at the time. So if you started out with a low Wisdom and grow to enjoy playing a low-wisdom character, you probably won't level that stat up... it's fun to play for you, after all. But if you're starting at 20th level then you don't have a sense of who your character is/was, so it's just a generic pool of points instead of having a good sense of what attributes you've been practicing/working on.

Thinker
2008-03-05, 09:30 PM
Wow, this rule looks great for use with point-buy. How would you implement differently(if at all) using the rolling, array, or other stat generation system?

I would recommend against using this for a dice-roll stat-generation for the same reasons as Roderick mentioned. For an array of stats it could work much the same with no real problems.

ladditude
2008-03-05, 11:02 PM
I don't see why this would be bad for rolled characters. If you have great roles to begin with, you aren't really gaining anything. However, if you rolled terribly, you can balance out your stats more evenly.

EX:
A guy playing a barbarian rolls:
Str:18
Con:18
Dex:15
Int:11
Wis:13
Cha:9

He might put 8 points into Strength, 8 into Constitution, 2 in Dexterity and 1 in Wisdom and Intelligence any of the other stats. He can get
Str:20
Con:20
Dex:16
Int:12
Wis:14
Cha:9

Balanced, and only two more points gained than the normal way.

A guy playing a rogue rolls:
Str: 6
Con:12
Dex:15
Int: 13
Wis:9
Cha:8

He can put 2 in Dex, 5 in Int, 8 in Str, 2 in Con and 3 in Wis. This will give him
Str:14
Con: 14
Dex: 16
Int: 16
Wis: 12
Cha: 8

Also a balanced character, but one who would gain 17 points with the current system.

The first character is still better, but not nearly as drastically.

BTW, how do I make this a spoiler?

Reinboom
2008-03-05, 11:16 PM
I sort of like it. My issues with it are reflective only of how I dislike the curve point buy implements anyways. I think I shall try it out.

Thinker
2008-03-06, 02:08 AM
I don't see why this would be bad for rolled characters. If you have great roles to begin with, you aren't really gaining anything. However, if you rolled terribly, you can balance out your stats more evenly.

EX:
A guy playing a barbarian rolls:
Str:18
Con:18
Dex:15
Int:11
Wis:13
Cha:9

He might put 8 points into Strength, 8 into Constitution, 2 in Dexterity and 1 in Wisdom and Intelligence any of the other stats. He can get
Str:20
Con:20
Dex:16
Int:12
Wis:14
Cha:9

Balanced, and only two more points gained than the normal way.

A guy playing a rogue rolls:
Str: 6
Con:12
Dex:15
Int: 13
Wis:9
Cha:8

He can put 2 in Dex, 5 in Int, 8 in Str, 2 in Con and 3 in Wis. This will give him
Str:14
Con: 14
Dex: 16
Int: 16
Wis: 12
Cha: 8

Also a balanced character, but one who would gain 17 points with the current system.

The first character is still better, but not nearly as drastically.

BTW, how do I make this a spoiler?

You're right, it could work. I'm simply biased against rolled abilities because of the potential gaps in the party's stats.

Spoiler code:

[spoiler.] Your text here. [/spoiler.]
without the periods.

Charity
2008-03-06, 03:11 AM
I fear I agree with PM on this one... not a very interesting post I know...
I thought you might like to know if you want to show someone some board code stick it in some noparse brackets

eg
blurb was written
blurb

Saph
2008-03-06, 07:30 AM
It's a very interesting rule. I like it, as it gives you more options for developing your character.


Also, having all of your PCs with all 18 stats (or something close to it) makes them all into Superman clones. Everyone will be strong, agile, hearty, smart, wise, and communicative. No one will be weak, clumsy, sickly, dumb, foolish, or repulsive. This takes away from roleplaying diversity. And it takes away from character role niche protection - everyone can be a more uniformly good at being a party face, meat shield, etc. No one will truly excel or suck at anything.

I don't think this is true. Bear in mind that a heavily SAD character really has no use for those dump stats at all. A wizard doesn't care much about his Strength score, and cares even less about his Charisma. So if he's optimising, he's still going to value 1 point of Int more than 4 points of Cha.

Under point buy, choosing a dump stat for RP purposes is already a voluntary thing, so I don't think giving a player the option to raise it later is a problem.

GURPS and other point-buy systems already run stat boosts this way - it's cheaper to raise a character's Health score from 8 to 9 than it is to raise it from 14 to 15.

- Saph

Thinker
2008-03-06, 11:19 AM
I fear I agree with PM on this one... not a very interesting post I know...
What problems do you see with the house-rule? I know PM said his, but I would like to hear other points of view :smallsmile:



I thought you might like to know if you want to show someone some board code stick it in some noparse brackets

eg
blurb was written
blurb

Cool, thanks. I tried
first and it didn't work.

Yakk
2008-03-06, 11:42 AM
Downside: characters can get all 18s.
8->14 = 6 points
15->16 = 4 points
17->18 = 6 points
16 points per 18.
3 18s = 48 points

Meanwhile, 48 points in one attribute is 26.

So...
Int/Str/Cha of 26/8/8 (+8/-1/-1)
vs
Int/Str/Cha of 18/18/18 (+4/+4/+4)

Both cost the same. And both cases are level 20 characters who spent 28 points on those 3 attributes at level 1! (ie, they have little if any points to spend elsewhere).

So this boosts MAD characters: currently D&D has a problem that MAD is a overly negative feature of a class.

This increases choice, boosts a class of characters that aren't good enough, and doesn't seem to result in ridiculous attributes.

It does boost bookkeeping. (you have to keep track of how many points you have free).

Charity
2008-03-06, 12:02 PM
Well Thinker my good man, I have not devoted a great deal of thought to analysing this so forgive me if this seems ill conceived.

Just to set out my stall as it were it's best if I begin by mentioning, I am not really a big fan of point buy, I think it leads to a lack of diversity... I understand it's strong points, just I would rather give a character a reroll than have a legion of clones.
I think this will encourage folk to spread their stats not nessisarily at the start as they will have differing priorities (high start Int for skills etc)), but if they all spread out their points, eventually they are all going to start looking pretty similar.

Your system will, I believe lend itself to more MAD characters (which some might say is a good thing), that are all fairly similar stat/(build) wise but it still won't prevent the SAD classes, (full spellcasters) ruling the roost, (higher stats will never make up the gap) in fact to stay ahead SAD characters will no doubt go all out SAD, borking their characters for anything else, as the MAD charaters will pick up all the loose threads. Though it does indeed narrow the gap, it does so marginally at best, and at the cost of diversity...

I forsee 3 melee/skillmonkey clones stepping on each others toes pushing a pastey mage in a wheelbarrow, getting him out of the box whenever they get into a fight, oh, and a couple of giant bears.

It is not that I dislike the system, it achieves it's aims, it's not even that I dislike the sentiment behind it, I just imagine it to be a little abusable and moving point buy even further from my preferance of diversity.

ColdBrew
2008-03-06, 12:47 PM
Downside: characters can get all 18s.
8->14 = 6 points
15->16 = 4 points
17->18 = 6 points
16 points per 18.
3 18s = 48 points

Meanwhile, 48 points in one attribute is 26.

What?

Characters only get 45 points from creation to level 20, starting with 8s. You will never get 18s in all stats with this system. In fact, you can only afford 2 stats at 18, level 8 at the earliest.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-03-06, 01:52 PM
*trimmed*I've been screwed by rolling before. Dice hate me during stat gen. Last campaign I joined it took 4 rolls to get something usable for a SAD character. Meanwhile, one of my buddies in that campaign can and usually does roll stats with multiple >15s and none less than 10. Point-buy eliminates those kinds of discrepancies, and this makes a bad type of characters better.

Charity
2008-03-06, 03:00 PM
I've been screwed by rolling before. Dice hate me during stat gen. Last campaign I joined it took 4 rolls to get something usable for a SAD character. Meanwhile, one of my buddies in that campaign can and usually does roll stats with multiple >15s and none less than 10. Point-buy eliminates those kinds of discrepancies, and this makes a bad type of characters better.

yup those are the breaks, diversity demands that someone wins and someone loses, it's the price you pay.
However I would like to make it clear that I allow a player to reroll if they are not happy that they can build the character that they want with the stats they've got, my players tend not to take the piss, we're all grown ups after all.

Yakk
2008-03-06, 03:27 PM
What?

Characters only get 45 points from creation to level 20, starting with 8s. You will never get 18s in all stats with this system. In fact, you can only afford 2 stats at 18, level 8 at the earliest.

The number of points at level 1 is a pretty free variable. Some people currently play with more points at level 1, some people play with less.

I was examining what it would take to generate a character with lots of high stats: and it is quite expensive.

A character with 6 14s costs 6*6 = 36 points. With 25 points to start, you can reach this threshold by level 11.

At level 20, they could hit 16/16/14/14/14/14.

Assuming you limit level 1 characters to 18 in a single stat... A SAD character would start out with:
level 1: 18/14/11/8/8/8
level 11: 20/14/11/8/8/8
level 20: 23/14/11/8/8/8

Thrawn183
2008-03-06, 03:36 PM
The last time I rolled a character, (4d6 7 times, drop the lowest) it took me 6 tries to get a total modifier of +4 or better. Granted it ended up being... extremely good, but I don't really want to play a character with my first set of rolls (highest score was a 13, had a 4 and two 5's).

I'm not sure how I feel about the system in question. On one hand, its pretty cool, if you have a lot of low rolls it can really help you out. Problem is, I'm not sure how I feel about what it does to skills. There are a lot of environmental effects that are supposed to be easy to moderately difficult to deal with that this system would make just simply easy.

Again, probably the simplest and most elegant usage of point-buy that I've ever seen. This would actually make somebody who rolled say.... straight 12's able to play a fairly competent SAD class because they can catch up a bit faster. Nice idea.

ColdBrew
2008-03-06, 04:36 PM
Problem is, I'm not sure how I feel about what it does to skills. There are a lot of environmental effects that are supposed to be easy to moderately difficult to deal with that this system would make just simply easy.

I have no idea what you're talking about. If you mean someone with 14 in all stats having +2 modifiers in a bunch of untrained skills, they still can't do better than DC 10. Please explain this comment.

ladditude
2008-03-07, 02:04 AM
Downside: characters can get all 18s.
8->14 = 6 points
15->16 = 4 points
17->18 = 6 points
16 points per 18.
3 18s = 48 points



No, you would get 45 points using standard point buy. So you could have two 18s, not all 18s.

Talic
2008-03-07, 02:44 AM
Highest average stats possible under this system:

Start with an 18, a 14, an 11, and 3 8's.

18
14
11
8
8
8

Levels 2-10, add 3 to 8's.
Levels 11-13, add 3 to an 11.
Levels 14-16, add 3 to an 11.
Levels 17-19, add 3 to an 11.
Level 20, add 1 to an 11.


End result: 18, 14, 14, 14, 14, 12.

This Cannot, under 25 point buy, get any closer than that to "all 18's".