On Point Buy

[gkathellar]

A bit of backstory:

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So I was looking at Legend, the product of people who seem to hate 3.5 on this very forum, and I noticed that for character generation one of the options for ability score generation was point buy. "Ah, interesting," said I, and proceeded to look for the accompanying table, where I would learn how much each progressive ability score increase would cost out of your 26 points. It took me a few seconds to realize this table didn't exist.

And that was when I realized that point-buy, as written, makes no sense at all.

The problem, essentially, is the uneven cost per bonus. Why does going from 14 to 16 cost 4 points, but going from 16 to 18 cost 6? The increase provides exactly the same numerical bonus: a +1 increase to a relevant modifier.

The Rationale:

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Yes, higher scores allow you to qualify for feats more easily, but since you can use enhancement bonuses to help you qualify for those, that can't really be taken seriously. Perhaps the intent is to enforce some kind of statistical average, but we're talking about a game in which the standard method of ability score generation is "roll some dice, see what happens."

Or, theoretically, the object could be to discourage players from overspending in one or two ability scores so that they won't end up with 8s in the others. But the increased costs actually encourage this! You dump as many stats as you can, because you need the spare points to the ability scores your actually value up past mook levels.

Moreover, they create a kind of "prestige" to higher statistics that they don't mathematically deserve. An 18 was the coolest thing ever in 2E because you got bonuses magnitudes above what a 17 would offer you, and because without any point buy around and 3d6 for rolls your odds of getting one were half a percent. In 3.X, an 18 is just another +1.

If higher scores cost less, players will feel more comfortable spending points on "dump" stats, since they'll be able to reach acceptable levels more easily. This especially important in a game where a whole half of the ability scores are supposed to inform significant aspects of your PC's personality and identity, and where those very scores are the most common dump stats.

I'm strongly considering removing the bloated costs for higher scores, and just handing them to people on a 1-for-1 basis. Since it's a pretty universal thing, I'm edging toward allowing it generally in other d20 games as well. What kind of game effects will this have that I'm not considering? How do people feel about this idea in general?

[Eurus]

The idea is that the cost increase reduces some of the incentive to focus all of your points on one or two abilities, I assume. On the other hand, if you feel like ability scores of 18 should be relatively commonplace rather than rare, eliminating the diminishing returns allows characters to diversify more in their secondary stats while keeping a strong focus in their primaries. Could work fine.

[Yora]

When you alow linear point buy progressions, it's a lot easier to push one or two abilities extremely high. Under normal point buy rules, the amount of points required to increase high scores just isn't worth it.

[Pyromancer999]

It might help people comment if you included a link to what you're talking about.

[gkathellar]

When you alow linear point buy progressions, it's a lot easier to push one or two abilities extremely high. Under normal point buy rules, the amount of points required to increase high scores just isn't worth it.

I can see what you're saying, but most people already specialize one or two stats up to 16 already. The actual costs usually associated with point buy do a lot more to damage MAD characters than SAD ones. A heavily SAD character gets, what, a +1 out of doing this? Whereas characters that need to or want to spread the wealth around get significantly more.

It might help people comment if you included a link to what you're talking about.

Uh, 3.5? Sorry if that was unclear. Mentioning Legend was mostly just anecdotal, but linked for posterity I suppose.

[Yora]

If you have two 16s under normal rules, linear PB would increase them to 18. Which isn't much, but if you have larger pools of points, scores of 20 and 22 also become possible while still not dumping everything else to 8.

[Rogue Shadows]

Yes, higher scores allow you to qualify for feats more easily, but since you can use enhancement bonuses to help you qualify for those, that can't really be taken seriously. Perhaps the intent is to enforce some kind of statistical average, but we're talking about a game in which the standard method of ability score generation is "roll some dice, see what happens."

The problem begins to occur here.

If you roll 4d6 six times and drop the lowest dice from each roll, statistically, the numbers you end up with are: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. Or in other words, the elite array thet 3.5 D&D is balanced around.

The 25-Point Buy method is meant to allow a character to start with 8 in everything and choose to either built the elite array, or build something that is (theoretically) just as good and balanced against the elite array.

Changing to a linear progression would allow for a 24 point build to reach the elite array, but now you can build something a lot more powerful than the elite array using those 24 points.

[Closet_Skeleton]

The idea is that the cost increase reduces some of the incentive to focus all of your points on one or two abilities, I assume.

But SAD classes being better than MAD classes makes that too little too late.

This might actually power up MAD classes.

Letting a fighter have a few more points in wis as well as STR DEX and Con helps him a lot more than letting the wizard have a few more points in strength.

Changing to a linear progression would allow for a 24 point build to reach the elite array, but now you can build something a lot more powerful than the elite array using those 24 points.

Well that's easily solvable by just reducing it to a 21 or so point build.

[Rogue Shadows]

Well that's easily solvable by just reducing it to a 21 or so point build.

But then you can't build the elite array.

As Point Buy stands now, if you prefer building with the elite array but your DM says "we're using point buy," that's not a problem because you can just use point buy to build that array anyway.

[Eurus]

But SAD classes being better than MAD classes makes that too little too late.

This might actually power up MAD classes.

Letting a fighter have a few more points in wis as well as STR DEX and Con helps him a lot more than letting the wizard have a few more points in strength.

Like I said, it could certainly work, and might even be a good idea depending on the group. I was just explaining why it probably existed in the first place.

[Veklim]

My players like high-powered campaigns, lots of magic and lots of might, and this means most of my games for the last few years have been on a linear PB system. I use 76-80 points buy-in (depending on how high powered I want it to be), every stat at zero, minimum of 8, maximum of 18 in any stat before racial modifiers. What this yeilds is a fairly high-powered group (which is fine because all my enemy NPCs use 80-84 point buy-ins instead) but it's consistent, and that's what counts for me.

As the current scaling buy stands, MAD characters certainly get the initial advantage, because most MAD classes can cope with lower numbers in their vitals than a SAD class can for at least the first 3 levels.

[Yitzi]

Balance-wise, it's because a few high scores tend to be better than a lot of medium-high scores. It's always a +1 increase to a relevant modifier, but boosting from +3 to +4 means you're boosting modifiers that are already high (meaning that you'll be using them a lot), while +0 to +1 means you're boosting modifiers you're going to use only when you have to. In essence, MAD classes have to spend on more abilities, but it's cheaper so it balances out.

Realism-wise, it's because extremely high values are very rare; in dice rolling that's shown by rolling 4d6b3 (which will tend to cluster more or less around the average in the 14 to 15 area); normal people (i.e. not the highly skilled and capable characters that are PCs) would roll 3d6, which is very close to a bell curve.

Making each point increase the same means that everyone will take 18 in the few most important abilities and dump the rest. SAD classes would become far more powerful.

Also, to Veklim: A 76-80 point buy with an 18 cap is probably a bad idea, as it means that you can max out 4 ability scores...that's probably why your MAD classes outpower the SAD ones. I'd say that for 76-80 point buy you should probably raise the cap up to 24 (20 points for a score of 19, 24 points for 20, 29 points for 21, 34 points for 22, 40 points for 23, 46 points for 24.)

[Siosilvar]

Also, to Veklim: A 76-80 point buy with an 18 cap is probably a bad idea, as it means that you can max out 4 ability scores...that's probably why your MAD classes outpower the SAD ones. I'd say that for 76-80 point buy you should probably raise the cap up to 24 (20 points for a score of 19, 24 points for 20, 29 points for 21, 34 points for 22, 40 points for 23, 46 points for 24.)

Uh, no? If you start at 0 with an 8 minimum and 76 points that are one-to-one, you effectively start at 8 in everything and with 28 points that are one-to-one.

[Epsilon Rose]

You might want to check out pathfinders point buy before going to far with this. I recall it's table being more reasonable and it starts all stats out as 10's (though you can buy down to 8 for extra points).
That said, a more mad friendly point buy might be nice; hang what the elite array says you should have.

[Yitzi]

But SAD classes being better than MAD classes makes that too little too late.

This might actually power up MAD classes.

Letting a fighter have a few more points in wis as well as STR DEX and Con helps him a lot more than letting the wizard have a few more points in strength.

But it won't help the fighter more than it helps the wizard; because the fighter is already only taking 16s (since he can't afford an 18 in everything), while the wizard is taking an 18 and would therefore get more benefit. If you want to let the fighter take a few more points in WIS without helping the wizard as much, you want to take the opposite approach, and make extremely high scores more expensive in comparison to moderately high scores.[/QUOTE]

Uh, no? If you start at 0 with an 8 minimum and 76 points that are one-to-one, you effectively start at 8 in everything and with 28 points that are one-to-one.

Oh, I misunderstood what you meant by "every stat at 0". 28 points that are one-to-one makes more sense, although it'll still lead to an overprevalence of "3 high, 3 dump" builds.

[Kuma Kode]

There is a bit of realism in making high scores harder to increase. You've probably heard bodybuilders talk about hitting a plateau, and that's the same general idea.

If you're inexperienced, weak, or unathletic, you can make rapid gains in a particular field you practice. Some people almost double their lifting capacity with only a few months of dedicated weightlifting. You can go from being out of breath after a minute and a half of running to running for a full half-hour in a few months of practice. You can learn to write code in an evening with some languages.

But once you get good at something, it gets harder and harder to make improvements. Bodybuilders, for instance, dread that plateau where they lift and lift but don't really get any bigger or stronger. Point-buy shows this by making already good stats a lot harder to improve than weak stats, since they take a greater amount of time and energy. This is also why I use a variant point-buy for improving stats by level gain.

[erikun]

There's not much point in a system where a single spell line (Polymorph) makes your starting scores irrelevant.

Beyond that, a 15 Strength character will always deal less damage than a 20 Strength character. A 15 Intelligence mage will always have less spells/easier to resist spells than a 20 Intelligence mage. Given the things that a wizard is willing to give up for one additional spell at each level, potentially free 7th/8th/9th spell slots are not something I would forsee them giving up.

[DiBastet]

Giving more power to SAD tier 1 instead of MAD tier 4 is a problem of the classes, not the point system.

It benefits the mad classes that will have more breathing room, however,the sad tier 1 was already with his primary casting stat very high, and now he'll have very high, as much as you allow (if you allow more than 18 you can bet they will have more than 18), and now can fill dex and con better than he could earlier.

as I said it's not problem of the point system, it's a problem of the classes. If the tier 1 sad class was a tier 1 or 2 mad class (like, don't know, different schools use different stats for dc or something like that), it would be more balanced.

I believe anything that helps tier 3- is a good thing, if it doesnt help tier 2+ more.

[Yitzi]

There's not much point in a system where a single spell line (Polymorph) makes your starting scores irrelevant.

That's a problem with polymorph; assume he's asking about a situation where that's been fixed.

Given the things that a wizard is willing to give up for one additional spell at each level, potentially free 7th/8th/9th spell slots are not something I would forsee them giving up.

And that insistence on maxing out the score should cost them.

Giving more power to SAD tier 1 instead of MAD tier 4 is a problem of the classes, not the point system.

The point system will affect it, though.

It benefits the mad classes that will have more breathing room, however,the sad tier 1 was already with his primary casting stat very high, and now he'll have very high, as much as you allow (if you allow more than 18 you can bet they will have more than 18), and now can fill dex and con better than he could earlier.

That's just the same as increasing the points, and is easy to compensate for (by making it something like 5 points lower than with the scaled version). But you'll still end up that it gives the SAD classes more of an advantage than the MAD classes.

I believe anything that helps tier 3- is a good thing, if it doesnt help tier 2+ more.

I'd say that a better approach is to try to weaken tier 2+ (as well as strengthen tier 5-), as tier 2+ is pretty ridiculous anyway.