Why do DMs choose low point-buy?

[Godskook]

I'm asking cause I'm curious, and also because of a couple of assumptions:
1.low point-buy favors casters. You can get an 18 in your primary casting stat, and 10s in both Dex and Con on a mere 20 point-buy, which is a playable caster, but I cringe at making a melee build with so few points.

2.It encourages non-organic stats in the context of the classes. At 25 point-buy, every wizard is going to be socially inept and weak and every barbarian is going to be dumb as $%*#. Where-as in 40 point-buy, you might see a few strong wizards, a few flexible ones, and a few charismatic ones as well.

3.Aren't adventurers supposed to be 'above average'? Admittedly, 17 point-buy is, strictly speaking, average, but is 30 point-buy far enough away to yield that "I'm better than a common man" feel?

[JaronK]

I believe it's an attempt to lower the overall power of the game. D&D is honestly far more powerful than the fluff suggests... a 10th level Wizard is supposed to be legendary, but endless wishes and things are well above what they're supposed to be able to do. As such, DMs often find that the stories they want to tell require a lower power level than the game mechanically creates, and they try to do this with lower point buys.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work. A 24 point buy Wizard is still rediculous, and at low point buys the Druid's animal companion makes the Fighter look like a chump. It's far better to use weaker classes and a standard (or even above standard) point buy than to restrict point buy but allow the strongest classes.

JaronK

[Splendor]

Most DMs give out magical items that are too powerful or DMs give out too many magical items.

14 Str + 4 magical stat bonus + "+3 weapon" = +7 hit
18 Str + no magical bonus + "+1 weapon" = +5 to hit

which is more important stats or magic?

If you play where magic can freely be bought then stats are a problem. If you play were magic cannot just be bought then stats really don't matter as much.

[JaronK]

Interestingly, most DMs I know low ball the magic items. Might be interesting to do a survey and found out what's more common.

JaronK

[Splendor]

Usually in our groups games you can't buy any magical items. People arn't sitting around making them.

“The gold piece limit (see Table 5–2) is an indicator of the price of the most expensive item available in that community. Nothing that costs more than a community’s gp limit is available for purchase in that community. Anything having a price under that limit is most likely available, whether it be mundane or magical.” – DMG pg 137

So if playing by the rules, and while in a large cities you can pretty much buy almost any item in the book. And I bet you alot of people play that way, just look at most of the posts on here for characters.

[Calimehter]

I run 25 point buy E6 right now, with a couple house rules that also make HP a bit more valuable than normal. I'll go in reverse order here:

3. It works if 25 points makes the characters more heroic than the rest of the world. I use 15 point buys for common folk, and only VIP NPCs get builds in the 22-25 point range. Being heroic relative to the common folk is all about where you set the baseline.

2. Well, there are reasons to spend limited points in other areas than your prime stats. Fighty-types do get some benefit from, say, INT 13 . . . besides the extra skill points, you get access to the Expertise feat tree. This knocks one of the 3 physical stats down. Knocking one of your physical stats (say, CON) down a bit to afford said INT boost just costs you a 1 HP per level and -1 to Fort Saves. It might not be good from an optimization purists point of view, but it is still viable.

Also, would a player who is intent on min-maxing his stats really stop min-maxing them if his build went up to 32 from 25? No, he'd just put more points into STR/DEX/CON and ignore the others. A player who *wants* to spend the points on non-prime stats will do so, and one who doesn't want to won't, regardless of the total point value allowed.

1. Casters have it easier no matter how many points you set, since they are not MAD. Unless you start going so high that folks can hit the maximum in multiple scores.

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Note I'm not really saying that your points are not legit, just that I feel that they are not "game breakers", since they are not breaking my game!

[Demons_eye]

So if playing by the rules

lost me there.


As a DM I dont use low point buy for that reason. Your the HERO! You go out kill the dragon and charm the ladies.

edit:

Also, would a player who is intent on min-maxing his stats really stop min-maxing them if his build went up to 32 from 25? No, he'd just put more points into STR/DEX/CON and ignore the others. A player who *wants* to spend the points on non-prime stats will do so, and one who doesn't want to won't, regardless of the total point value allowed.

When I get more points to spend I do put more in charisma or wisdom but only after getting that 16 in strength and constitution or that 16 intelligence 16 dexterity. One hit point a level matter and you would be surprised to find out how many people live, or could have live, by one hit point.

[Dr Bwaa]

As a DM I dont use low point buy for that reason. You're the HERO! You go out kill the dragon and charm the ladies.

I like games like this. Frankly, I tend to like high-point-buy games because the PCs are supposed to be special. Also, it lets me feel better about not helping them out very much, and it lets me do silly things like start a campaign where everyone has -500 (that's a negative sign) experience and is a level 1 commoner. The high stats allow you to survive in that situation, because when that's really the only difference between you and everyone else, it's a BIG DEAL. Stats become much less important as the magic and experience levels go up (as has been pointed out), so I like giving characters high stats to make even low-level stuff feel gritty (as in Difficult and Dangerous), but still Heroic.

That said, low point-buys can be fun, too, but only if you have good players--one or two subpar stats can make for a great roleplaying opportunity, but if the players won't make use of it, I think it's generally not worth it for whatever benefit you were hoping to gain from making the characters weaker.

[Mystic Muse]

I personally dislike low pointbuys or pointbuys in general. I usually do 4d6 best of three re-roll ones and you get one re-roll for your stats. There are other methods on this forum that would probably work too but I don't like pointbuy because it's still really easy to make a good caster from low pointbuy but melee gets screwed. Especially my favorite class, Paladins.

[Superglucose]

They think that stats = power, but it's really not that true. All characters should be randomly generated from a pool of three-ish sets of stats. Like you said, a 20 point buy is enough for a Wizard (hell, a 16 point buy is enough for a wizard, beyond the 18 int who cares?) but a 20 point buy will absolutley murder a fighter. That means that class = power, so what should really be happening is the tiered point buy suggested in the tier list.

[Runestar]

Also, would a player who is intent on min-maxing his stats really stop min-maxing them if his build went up to 32 from 25? No, he'd just put more points into STR/DEX/CON and ignore the others. A player who *wants* to spend the points on non-prime stats will do so, and one who doesn't want to won't, regardless of the total point value allowed.

It depends. A player might wish to invest some points in int, but only after his physical stats are settled. Too few stat points, and he may just think "screw it, the benefits don't outweigh the costs", forgo improved trip, and focus on a 2-handed weapon fighter with good str, decent dex/con and dumps his mental stats.

Skill points are nice to have and all, but a fighter's class skill list isn't really that great.

To argue that a true "roleplayer" is going to boost his int regardless of the opportunity cost if it fits his backstory is not without merit, but it also means penalizing him unnecessarily.

At least for me, int is a secondary stat at best, I would consider boosting it only after my key stats are taken care of and raised to a comfortable level.

So it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. You give fewer stat points because you assume people won't "roleplay" and pump only their core stats. And as it turns out, people end up doing exactly this because they have no points left for int at the end of the day.

[Chaelos]

As a DM I dont use low point buy for that reason. Your the HERO! You go out kill the dragon and charm the ladies.

+1

Every DM I've ever played with has thought this way. As an occasional DM, I also think this way. D&D is, at its core, a superhero game, after all, no matter how much it likes to pretend otherwise.

As for magic items, usually we assume you can find most anything you want in a big city, and relatively little in a town or village. Me, personally, I like to make people go on a sidequest for more interesting, rare (read: expensive) magic items, but not always. Usually, I make some sort of die roll to see if there's a certain magic item available, and go from there, but no DM I've ever played with hands out magic items like candy.

[Tavar]

I prefer high point buys, largely because I prefer gestalt games, and I find that such games benefit from higher stat totals because you can use less synergistic combinations, stat wise, and still come out alright.

Also, I find that in Low Point buy games, people tend to be more conservative in their character choice; more casters or non-stat dependent classes(Warlocks, Dragonfire Adepts). If normal melee classes are used, then they tend to be very focused; for melee, forgoing most interesting feat chains so that they can instead survive. And there is logic to this; I've seen characters who aren't built like this die surprisingly quickly.

Also, I tend to dislike rolling for stats.

[Godskook]

Also, would a player who is intent on min-maxing his stats really stop min-maxing them if his build went up to 32 from 25? No, he'd just put more points into STR/DEX/CON and ignore the others. A player who *wants* to spend the points on non-prime stats will do so, and one who doesn't want to won't, regardless of the total point value allowed.

Munchkins won't ever stop, but regular players will. For instance, I sacrificed a base 18 on my current character to shore up some of his offstats. As a wizard/rogue, I had to have a high int, first and fore most, and at a lower point-buy, I couldn't have even built him, and would've opted for a pure conjurer or rogue instead.

1. Casters have it easier no matter how many points you set, since they are not MAD. Unless you start going so high that folks can hit the maximum in multiple scores.

32 point-buy allows 2 18 scores, and is pretty common. I've even seen 40something a few times.

[absolmorph]

Frankly, I don't understand why people feel the need to make the players weaker. If you want to give them a challenge, make the enemies tougher!
Hell, I gave my players 5d6b3 for stats, and they got lucky in the first battle and were almost taken out in the second (a stroke of luck saved 'em). I plan on eventually giving them gestalt (they'll have to do a series of quests for each of 'em, but it'll happen) because they're the heroes! As Demons_eye said, "You go out, kill the dragon and charm the ladies." We don't want no sissy heroes, we want heroes that can take down any threat to the world that gets thrown at 'em.
Cthulhu got freed and is rampaging around? They'll take care of it by dinner.
A being from the Far Realms got pissed at someone on the Material Plane? Give 'em a couple days.
They're supposed to kick ass, and not feel the need to take names because they're AWESOME. Low point-buy subtracts from that feeling.

[grautry]

1.low point-buy favors casters. You can get an 18 in your primary casting stat, and 10s in both Dex and Con on a mere 20 point-buy, which is a playable caster, but I cringe at making a melee build with so few points.

Also, it works in the reverse. That is, at a very high end PB a Wizard won't be necessarily all that more powerful than the low PB Wizard.

The difference between a 20 PB and a 40 PB Wizard will be noticeable... but not really all that huge. Both will still be able to break the game with their hands behind their backs if they really want to, the 40 PB Wiz will only be somewhat more flexible in their choice of flavours of game-breaking.

The difference between a 20 PB and a 40 PB Fighter on the other hand will be fairly huge.

In other words, low PB doesn't really limit the already overpowered classes in any significant way and high PB doesn't really make the already overpowered classes that much more overpowered.

On the other hand low PB really limits the already weak classes and high PB makes the weak classes quite playable.

So yeah, it's generally a good idea to err on the side of high PB.

[Harperfan7]

I think it helps to look at endgame stats.

It took me a long time to appreciate the elite array.

My first character ever had 18, 17, 17, 16, 16, 16.

Then I realized, with elite array, by 20th, you can have 30, 22, 20, 20, 16, 14 or whatever, before spells (righteous might, etc).

[Attilargh]

I'm one of those weirdos who prefer low point-buy. I just can't see any heroism inherent in being the strongest or the toughest or the most brilliant person in the land. Seeing parties where everyone had at least one score of 18 stomps all over my suspension of disbelief, because if the rulebook is to be believed, these guys are the finest their species can produce, and I'm supposed to just accept they all met in a bar? I'm sorry, but this sounds like the opening to a really bad joke. It gets even worse if you start running into human (or elf or dwarf or halfling or...) opponents, because you're either so far above the peons that they don't pose a challenge or it turns out you aren't the strongest dude in the land after all and your DM just fooled you into thinking that by pointlessly inflating the numbers.

Besides, I happen to be quite fond of the "Everydude O'Farmer picks up a sword and saves the princess" cliché. It's not that impressive if E. O'Farmer can wrestle bears and crocodiles. You can keep your mechanically viable Doc Savages.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I do a 30pt buy in my games, but I also made a house-rule that you can't have any one ability higher than 16 at the end of character creation, not counting the 1pt bump every four levels. I've found that this gets the points spread around more and results in characters closer to the power curve I think the designers expected.

[Heliomance]

Is that including racial modifiers, Kelb?

[Saph]

1.low point-buy favors casters. You can get an 18 in your primary casting stat, and 10s in both Dex and Con on a mere 20 point-buy, which is a playable caster, but I cringe at making a melee build with so few points.

This is illusionary. The less stats you have to pump, the stronger your class; relative point buy makes very little difference.

2.It encourages non-organic stats in the context of the classes. At 25 point-buy, every wizard is going to be socially inept and weak and every barbarian is going to be dumb as $%*#. Where-as in 40 point-buy, you might see a few strong wizards, a few flexible ones, and a few charismatic ones as well.

See above. The powergamers will still put 16-18s in Int, Dex, and Con for their wizards, and dump everything else. The non-powergamers will still create balanced characters no matter what they're starting with.

(FYI, my current Wizard in our Pathfinder game has a positive Charisma modifier, and we're using Pathfinder-standard 15 point buy. You don't need to give out ridiculous point buy totals to have variety.)

3.Aren't adventurers supposed to be 'above average'? Admittedly, 17 point-buy is, strictly speaking, average, but is 30 point-buy far enough away to yield that "I'm better than a common man" feel?

Having high stats doesn't make you special, it just means the numbers on your character sheet are bigger.

Now, as for the answer to the question:

The base 3e monsters were playtested against PCs with a 25 point buy, and all have the equivalent of about a 15 point buy themselves. If you power up the PCs, you have to power up the monsters. This levels off the playing field and makes things exactly the same - The only difference being that I, as the DM, can no longer use vanilla monsters out of the Monster Manual, and have to do a whole bunch of stat-crunching just to keep everything normal. Frankly, I've got better things to do with my time.

In addition, going for the "high stats = good" mentality leads into a rat race. Once having an 16 is normal, then to be special, you have to have an 18. Once having an 18 is normal, then to be special, you have to have 18 and other high scores as well. Next is two 18s, and so on, until you end up with players who aren't happy unless EVERY one of their scores is high.

The easiest way to deal with this is to cut it off before it starts. This is why I've always run 28 point buy for my campaigns.

[Yora]

Default Why do DMs choose low point-buy?

Because it's fun.

Less recources require the players to make more plans and be more careful, and the characters do not automatically win every fight because they are the PCs.
Of course, it's not for every campaign or every group, but it's a viable form of making entertaining games.

[Eldariel]

This is illusionary. The less stats you have to pump, the stronger your class; relative point buy makes very little difference.

I disagree. It depends entirely on how many stats your character ties abilities to. Of course all stats are somewhat useful to every character, but a class focusing on Wis and Con is going to be stronger than class using Str, Dex, Con & Int in low-PB simply because he can focus his assets.

This will result in relatively bland, but almost-as-powerful-as-higher-PB character, while the Str/Dex/Con/Int-type is gonna be lacking feat access & raw numbers on both offense & defense due to the low PB.

[Amphetryon]

sustained brilliance from Saph

+1
I was going to post a long rant about escalating arms races and players' artificially created need to worship at the altar of the 18, then I realized that Saph had said everything I wanted to say, and had kept a civil tongue while doing so. Kudos!

[Saph]

Of course all stats are somewhat useful to every character, but a class focusing on Wis and Con is going to be stronger than class using Str, Dex, Con & Int in low-PB simply because he can focus his assets.

He'll be stronger in high-PB as well. Now, you can compare high-PB/low-PB to three-stat/two-stat and crunch the numbers and maybe you'll be able to find an extra +1 or +2 in it somewhere, but frankly, it simply isn't important enough to worry about. How a character is built and played is vastly more significant, and if you just want to nerf the SAD classes, there are much, much more effective ways of doing it.

[Noble Savant]

Wizards will always break the game, regardless of point buy. Unless you start with Pointbuy 4 or something like that. Then Warlocks will probably dominate. Don't focus on that aspect.

Personally, I think both aspects have merit. You don't need several big numbers on your character sheet to be a hero. In fact, it probably encourages laziness on the part of the players. If the monsters aren't a challenge, then it isn't going to be very fun. And if the monsters are a challenge, then why did you power up the players in the first place? To let them tower over the peasantry?

The only real benefit I can see to high point buys is that it lets the characters pull off more and more interesting stunts. They have more skill points and higher modifiers for those skills, more class combinations, more everything. And this can really improve upon the game if the players do it right.

In short, I'm happy as long as I don't have to roll stats.

[Eldariel]

He'll be stronger in high-PB as well. Now, you can compare high-PB/low-PB to three-stat/two-stat and crunch the numbers and maybe you'll be able to find an extra +1 or +2 in it somewhere, but frankly, it simply isn't important enough to worry about. How a character is built and played is vastly more significant, and if you just want to nerf the SAD classes, there are much, much more effective ways of doing it.

It isn't that big immediately on the paper, but if you keep a track, it'll be relevant, especially in the long run. Of course character build and mechanical play is more important, and the more-so the lower the PB; the less you have the work with, the more critical it is to use what you have efficiently.

[Saph]

It isn't that big immediately on the paper, but if you keep a track, it'll be relevant, especially in the long run.

Everything is relevant in the long run. That doesn't mean it's significant enough to be worth major weight in how you set up a campaign. The difference between 28 point buy and 32 point buy insofar as it affects the relative power of a Wizard and a Fighter is miniscule. Compared to things like tactics, build, cheese factor, and campaign style, it's microscopically small. So arguing for higher PB values on the grounds that it it helps the weaker classes is disingenuous.

[Azernak0]

It's primarily to keep the power of the classes down. However, the only difference between a 25 point buy wizard and a 40 point buy Wizard is a little bit of HP and slightly better AC and to hit with Ranged Touch Attacks.

As it was stated before, doing a 25 point is going to hinder other classes more than casters because they tend to be SAD. A Druid is going to overshadow the Fighter even more in a core only 25 point buy game. 18 Wisdom, 14 Constitution, and 11 intelligence. The difference between a 25 point buy Druid and a 32 point buy Druid is HP. The difference between a 25 point buy Fighter and a 32 point buy Fighter is damage, hit chance, AC, and HP.

I've actually had DM's restrict point buy systems because they taught that casters were too powerful anyway. The only thing that ended up happening was the Barbarian was clumsy, the Monk was useless, and the Druid was still awesome.

[Eldariel]

Everything is relevant in the long run. That doesn't mean it's significant enough to be worth major weight in how you set up a campaign. The difference between 28 point buy and 32 point buy insofar as it affects the relative power of a Wizard and a Fighter is miniscule. Compared to things like tactics, build, cheese factor, and campaign style, it's microscopically small. So arguing for higher PB values on the grounds that it it helps the weaker classes is disingenuous.

That's a function of the smallness of the change in pb though. Differences brought up here are much more massive; some are talking 25pb, others 40pb. There's a rather big difference between 25pb Wizard & 25pb Fighter vs. 40pb Wizard & 40pb Fighter.

Now, I'm not necessarily arguing for the higher PBs to support the class balance earlier here, but I do think slight increase in balance is a by-product of higher PBs, and I do think it's worth keeping in mind in these discussions. The biggest differences are in feat access and low-level play. Feat access is a very real limitation for much of your career in low-stat game and might make e.g. Combat Expertise Fighter very difficult to pull off. And low-level game is mostly stat checks as the class-based bonuses are +1-level, so the difference between 18 Str and 16 Str (both, damage and to hit) is larger than the difference between Fighter and Wizard.


The thing I really prefer in higher PB though is that it enables builds you couldn't pull off in lower PB; for example, if you want a swashbuckling-style Fighter expert in mindgames and various combat tricks, you're gonna need at least the Int for Combat Expertise, and prolly want the Cha for Imperious Command. On 25pb though? GL having 15 Cha, 13 Int and sufficient Str, Dex & Con for light-armored melee.