Stronger point buy, thoughts and questions

[FoxWolFrostFire]

So I was looking to homebrew some point buy stuff for 5E. I'm going to make it to where it is still capped at 15 for what you can buy. But increase it to around 32 or 34 points over 27. I was going to make them and the monsters a bit on the stronger side. Really get the epic explorer type feel. But I wanted insight of other GM and Players. Too much, not enough, should I just find other work around like a set stat point array thing like all players get a (18,16,14,14,12,8) to assign where they want.

[JNAProductions]

What I do for stat generation is this:

Pick six numbers, 3-18. These are your stats before racial mods. You may change them at any point before the game starts.

I've yet to have anyone abuse it, though generally they end up higher than point buy or standard array allows.

[FoxWolFrostFire]

What I do for stat generation is this:



I've yet to have anyone abuse it, though generally they end up higher than point buy or standard array allows.

I find it hard to believe that you don't just get a group of players with six 18s lol. Unless you are like. You can only pick each number once. In which case every player will pick 12-18 lol. But I guess those are just my players.

[JNAProductions]

I find it hard to believe that you don't just get a group of players with six 18s lol. Unless you are like. You can only pick each number once. In which case every player will pick 12-18 lol. But I guess those are just my players.

I've done it here on the Playground. It works fine.

If your players will just go absolute ham on it, make arrays. Say:
18 16 14 12 10 8
16 16 16 14 12 10
14 14 14 14 14 14

And let them pick from them.

[FoxWolFrostFire]

I've done it here on the Playground. It works fine.

If your players will just go absolute ham on it, make arrays. Say:
18 16 14 12 10 8
16 16 16 14 12 10
14 14 14 14 14 14

And let them pick from them.

I sadly only have TWO of 7 players I trust with your basic idea. I know DMs aren't supposed to pick favorites...Buuuuuut. I have.

[Sam113097]

You could make a stronger point-buy by bumping up the base stat to 10 instead of 8. That way, players can spend their points boosting their stats instead of getting most of them out of the negative modifier range.

[mk333]

If you give more points you just get more straight good stats across the board, but that gets boring. If every stat is a 14-15, there’s no point in having stats at all, because everything is maxed for every character and there is no difference across the party.

Remember that D&D is not a solo game. You want differentiation across the party. An Int 20 Str 6 adventuring with a Str 20 Int 6 is more interesting than two Int 14 Str 14 hanging out because they need to shore up each other’s weaknesses.

If you want to spice things up, extend the caps upwards and downwards and allow higher max and lower bottom stats.

[Mjolnirbear]

For my players, I have both increased point buy *and* a feat at first level.

These are my thoughts:
* Feats can define the playstyle of a lot of characters. Sentinel, PAM, CBE, Warcaster, Spell Sniper, Sharpshooter all massively define how you play your character. Why do you only get such definition when you're almost Tier 2? Variant humans are popular for a reason. (Note: variant humans have a huge boost. If you give feats at first level, drop variant humans and boost basic humans. I gave them, essentially, 1 legendary resistance per rest.

* 27 points is perfectly adequate for any character; but if you're a MAD class, then you suffer more than the SAD class. Rogue only needs Dex. Wizard only needs Int. Fighter needs only Dex or Strength unless they're tanking, but that's still only two scores. Classes like Paladins and Monks need three decent stats. Giving more points in point buy means that MAD classes don't need to boost stats as badly, meaning they have more breathing room. And since SAD classes are, well, SAD, they can bump stats they don't need for roleplaying purposes.

* When I started DMing I was desperately terrified of accidentally TPKing the group at low levels. Making them stronger makes them tougher. As a DM I have all the tools I need to ramp up difficulty if I find I need it later, but I have much less worry about accidental deaths due to like 3 crits in a row. (I also learned the 'waves of baddies' trick, which is extremely useful when your players aren't challenged enough. I can let them kick ass, or I can say the baddies yelled for backup before succumbing to their wounds).

My players are definitely more powerful. I don't mind that at all. But since 16 is still the effective roof at first level, they still have room to improve, which is also important.

Hopefully this helps. My point buy is 33, IIRC.

[FoxWolFrostFire]

For my players, I have both increased point buy *and* a feat at first level.

These are my thoughts:
* Feats can define the playstyle of a lot of characters. Sentinel, PAM, CBE, Warcaster, Spell Sniper, Sharpshooter all massively define how you play your character. Why do you only get such definition when you're almost Tier 2? Variant humans are popular for a reason. (Note: variant humans have a huge boost. If you give feats at first level, drop variant humans and boost basic humans. I gave them, essentially, 1 legendary resistance per rest.

* 27 points is perfectly adequate for any character; but if you're a MAD class, then you suffer more than the SAD class. Rogue only needs Dex. Wizard only needs Int. Fighter needs only Dex or Strength unless they're tanking, but that's still only two scores. Classes like Paladins and Monks need three decent stats. Giving more points in point buy means that MAD classes don't need to boost stats as badly, meaning they have more breathing room. And since SAD classes are, well, SAD, they can bump stats they don't need for roleplaying purposes.

* When I started DMing I was desperately terrified of accidentally TPKing the group at low levels. Making them stronger makes them tougher. As a DM I have all the tools I need to ramp up difficulty if I find I need it later, but I have much less worry about accidental deaths due to like 3 crits in a row. (I also learned the 'waves of baddies' trick, which is extremely useful when your players aren't challenged enough. I can let them kick ass, or I can say the baddies yelled for backup before succumbing to their wounds).

My players are definitely more powerful. I don't mind that at all. But since 16 is still the effective roof at first level, they still have room to improve, which is also important.

Hopefully this helps. My point buy is 33, IIRC.

Well I did have this idea where starting at 1st and every 4th character level you can select a feat ignoring the stat bumps those feats would give you otherwise.

[Anymage]

Well I did have this idea where starting at 1st and every 4th character level you can select a feat ignoring the stat bumps those feats would give you otherwise.

If you want higher stats all around, either to support MAD builds or just to have supercharacters, you might as well lean into this idea. Give everybody one free ASI at first level and one bonus one at every fourth level on top of the normal ones built into leveling. If you want to support more unusual builds, you can make the bonus ASIs scale by character level instead of class level.

Personally speaking I'm a fan of using levels to boost power instead of just giving more stat points out the gate. A first level character with all 18s is nice, but the class features on a fifth level character give you more actual things to do. Starting at third or fifth once your players know the ropes is probably better than trying to make characters feel heroic at first when that's pretty deliberately peon level. (Read Tiers of Play in your PHB. 1-4 is called out as "effectively apprentice adventurers".) On top of that, I kind of like the characters having things they're average at or even things they're weak at to give them a reason to travel with characters with complementary strengths.