Rolling dice Vs point buy

[linklord231]

According to this, the "average roll" of 4d6 drop low is 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 9. Which is actually better than the Elite Array, and equal to a 28 point buy if my math is right.  So there you go.

[veekie]

Fun theorycraft:
What happens if you limit class tier availability by roll quality?
Only 1 good stat - T1
Only 2 good stats- T2
Only 3 good stats- T3
And so on, with Good being a stat at >14.

The guy with straight 18s gets the challenge of making monk playable.

[Tarkisflux]

If I'm going to just let people play whatever they want, I don't like either method actually. "The total of your stats must equal 72, nothing under 6 or over 18, (mostly) no racial mods" is what I go with in those situations. It's worth noting that I also use substantial house rules that tend to steer people away from just running 18s and 6s though. Well, most people anyway; the one who did elect to do that turned out to be surprisingly vulnerable and the least happy of the group. I'm not sure how well it would work out in a core game though.

If I'm not going to just let people play whatever, I prefer 4d6 drop lowest, assigned in the order rolled, with the option to scrap the set and start fresh if your net bonus is less than +1. Everyone who has played it with me went into it annoyed, and then wound up extremely happy with their less-than-perfect character after a session or two. I'm not sure if that was because they got over the attribute generation thing or they actually like the occasional undesired flaw, but it hasn't worked out poorly for me yet.

[10d10]

Fun theorycraft:
What happens if you limit class tier availability by roll quality?
Only 1 good stat - T1
Only 2 good stats- T2
Only 3 good stats- T3
And so on, with Good being a stat at >14.

The guy with straight 18s gets the challenge of making monk playable.

That's quite interesting. Specially if the group is open to work with whatever the dice came up with instead of going to the game with a Cleric/Monk/Psionic Aasimar character already in mind.

I'm not saying that coming up with a character at home is a bad thing, but this tier method could be used in a few campaigns, just to change the modus operandi of the group.

[RobbyPants]

Fun theorycraft:
What happens if you limit class tier availability by roll quality?
Only 1 good stat - T1
Only 2 good stats- T2
Only 3 good stats- T3
And so on, with Good being a stat at >14.

The guy with straight 18s gets the challenge of making monk playable.

How do you handle multiclassing?

Monk 1/Divine Caster X suddenly becomes a lot more attractive when, in addition to all of the normal monk goodies, you're getting +2 to +4 on most of your stat mods.

[Agita]

Fun theorycraft:
What happens if you limit class tier availability by roll quality?
Only 1 good stat - T1
Only 2 good stats- T2
Only 3 good stats- T3
And so on, with Good being a stat at >14.

The guy with straight 18s gets the challenge of making monk playable.

Presumably, you're allowed to take only classes of the tier(s) you're limited to, plus PrCs.
The way I see it, what happens is that you restrict character concepts by roll quality even more. So Jimmy had this cool concept for a Sorcerer, but he rolled four 16s and now he has to play a Fighter instead, because the dice said so. With regular rolling, T1-2 classes are close to always available, with better rolls unlocking more MAD classes; with this method, you're outright locked into a specific tier depending on your roll.

[Halinn]

Fun theorycraft:
What happens if you limit class tier availability by roll quality?
Only 1 good stat - T1
Only 2 good stats- T2
Only 3 good stats- T3
And so on, with Good being a stat at >14.

The guy with straight 18s gets the challenge of making monk playable.

Presumably, you're allowed to take only classes of the tier(s) you're limited to, plus PrCs.
The way I see it, what happens is that you restrict character concepts by roll quality even more. So Jimmy had this cool concept for a Sorcerer, but he rolled four 16s and now he has to play a Fighter instead, because the dice said so. With regular rolling, T1-2 classes are close to always available, with better rolls unlocking more MAD classes; with this method, you're outright locked into a specific tier depending on your roll.

Ur-Priest et al. messes up the concept of allowing PrCs.

[Agita]

Fun theorycraft:
What happens if you limit class tier availability by roll quality?
Only 1 good stat - T1
Only 2 good stats- T2
Only 3 good stats- T3
And so on, with Good being a stat at >14.

The guy with straight 18s gets the challenge of making monk playable.

Presumably, you're allowed to take only classes of the tier(s) you're limited to, plus PrCs.
The way I see it, what happens is that you restrict character concepts by roll quality even more. So Jimmy had this cool concept for a Sorcerer, but he rolled four 16s and now he has to play a Fighter instead, because the dice said so. With regular rolling, T1-2 classes are close to always available, with better rolls unlocking more MAD classes; with this method, you're outright locked into a specific tier depending on your roll.

Ur-Priest et al. messes up the concept of allowing PrCs.

That, too, though to be fair Ur-Priest and friends have their own problems independent of the system.

[dipolartech]

I've done rolling dice for table top and I've done point buy for D20 based computer rpgs and I have to say that a) i like dice for tabletop most of the time  and b) the variances in what the stats and stat bonuses mean in different mechanics is obnoxious.

[X-Codes]

Fun theorycraft:
What happens if you limit class tier availability by roll quality?
Only 1 good stat - T1
Only 2 good stats- T2
Only 3 good stats- T3
And so on, with Good being a stat at >14.

The guy with straight 18s gets the challenge of making monk playable.

Presumably, you're allowed to take only classes of the tier(s) you're limited to, plus PrCs.
The way I see it, what happens is that you restrict character concepts by roll quality even more. So Jimmy had this cool concept for a Sorcerer, but he rolled four 16s and now he has to play a Fighter instead, because the dice said so. With regular rolling, T1-2 classes are close to always available, with better rolls unlocking more MAD classes; with this method, you're outright locked into a specific tier depending on your roll.

At any given time, I've probably had a half-dozen cool character concepts of varying tiers.  On the other hand, I think I'd cap it at tier 3, such that 3 or more good stats means Tier 3 or lower options.  Perhaps we should also (re-)introduce the old "reduce one stat by 2 to increase another by 1" rule from earlier editions.  Maybe append it to 3 to account for the relative point buy values of 14 and 18.

[veekie]

Well, the rationale for it was less to 'punish' high rollers, but to do what rolling is good for, inducing variety.

[Agita]

Well, the rationale for it was less to 'punish' high rollers, but to do what rolling is good for, inducing variety.

But it does punish high rollers, and doesn't induce any more variety than a generous point buy does. If you want to give lower tier classes extra stats to spread around, that can be accomplished just as easily by giving them a bigger point buy.

[caelic]

But it does punish high rollers, and doesn't induce any more variety than a generous point buy does. If you want to give lower tier classes extra stats to spread around, that can be accomplished just as easily by giving them a bigger point buy.

...or by significantly upping the overall point buy and then making people purchase their class, with higher-tier classes costing more.  Same end result, different way of presenting it.

[Agita]

But it does punish high rollers, and doesn't induce any more variety than a generous point buy does. If you want to give lower tier classes extra stats to spread around, that can be accomplished just as easily by giving them a bigger point buy.

...or by significantly upping the overall point buy and then making people purchase their class, with higher-tier classes costing more.  Same end result, different way of presenting it.

Same thing under a different name, yeah. I tend to favor the former, both because it feels more like helping lower tiers than punishing higher tiers and because it's more straightforward and to the point.

[Halinn]

But it does punish high rollers, and doesn't induce any more variety than a generous point buy does. If you want to give lower tier classes extra stats to spread around, that can be accomplished just as easily by giving them a bigger point buy.

...or by significantly upping the overall point buy and then making people purchase their class, with higher-tier classes costing more.  Same end result, different way of presenting it.

Same thing under a different name, yeah. I tend to favor the former, both because it feels more like helping lower tiers than punishing higher tiers and because it's more straightforward and to the point.

The approach with a high point buy, then purchasing a class does, however, allow for other options to be tacked on to it. Want a +1 LA template/race? Sure, that'll be 10 points. Want to start with more xp/money? Sure, that'll be 20 bucks 10 points. There's a lot more possibilities that way.

[dipolartech]

That sounds like the M&M game that gets tossed about ever so often, something "Masterminds" isn't it?

[Agita]

But it does punish high rollers, and doesn't induce any more variety than a generous point buy does. If you want to give lower tier classes extra stats to spread around, that can be accomplished just as easily by giving them a bigger point buy.

...or by significantly upping the overall point buy and then making people purchase their class, with higher-tier classes costing more.  Same end result, different way of presenting it.

Same thing under a different name, yeah. I tend to favor the former, both because it feels more like helping lower tiers than punishing higher tiers and because it's more straightforward and to the point.

The approach with a high point buy, then purchasing a class does, however, allow for other options to be tacked on to it. Want a +1 LA template/race? Sure, that'll be 10 points. Want to start with more xp/money? Sure, that'll be 20 bucks 10 points. There's a lot more possibilities that way.

True enough. You can still do the same by giving specific classes higher point buys, but it's just more elegant the other way. The LA "buyoff" is a good idea, but I don't think the extra XP or gold is - the two values fluctuate too wildly an are entirely one-shot (in the event you decide to blow some XP on a spell or gp on a consumable). Something like a bonus feat for the appropriate point buy value is doable, though.

[Halinn]

That sounds like the M&M game that gets tossed about ever so often, something "Masterminds" isn't it?

Mutants and Masterminds.

[10d10]

But it does punish high rollers, and doesn't induce any more variety than a generous point buy does. If you want to give lower tier classes extra stats to spread around, that can be accomplished just as easily by giving them a bigger point buy.

...or by significantly upping the overall point buy and then making people purchase their class, with higher-tier classes costing more.  Same end result, different way of presenting it.

Same thing under a different name, yeah. I tend to favor the former, both because it feels more like helping lower tiers than punishing higher tiers and because it's more straightforward and to the point.

The approach with a high point buy, then purchasing a class does, however, allow for other options to be tacked on to it. Want a +1 LA template/race? Sure, that'll be 10 points. Want to start with more xp/money? Sure, that'll be 20 bucks 10 points. There's a lot more possibilities that way.

True enough. You can still do the same by giving specific classes higher point buys, but it's just more elegant the other way. The LA "buyoff" is a good idea, but I don't think the extra XP or gold is - the two values fluctuate too wildly an are entirely one-shot (in the event you decide to blow some XP on a spell or gp on a consumable). Something like a bonus feat for the appropriate point buy value is doable, though.

Pathfinder goes around the "I want more money" with some traits like "Rich Parents" or "You have a store" that'll give you +200 to +500GP during character creation. But extra EXP I'm not sure that's good... The idea was to have a balance within the group with point buy, right?

[Agita]

That sounds like the M&M game that gets tossed about ever so often, something "Masterminds" isn't it?

Mutants and Masterminds.

Correct. Mutants and Masterminds goes even farther, though, and has no classes at all, with all traits period being bought from the alloted points. Its second and third editions are worth looking into, if only to take a look at the alternative approach; 3e has a SRD here.

But it does punish high rollers, and doesn't induce any more variety than a generous point buy does. If you want to give lower tier classes extra stats to spread around, that can be accomplished just as easily by giving them a bigger point buy.

...or by significantly upping the overall point buy and then making people purchase their class, with higher-tier classes costing more.  Same end result, different way of presenting it.

Same thing under a different name, yeah. I tend to favor the former, both because it feels more like helping lower tiers than punishing higher tiers and because it's more straightforward and to the point.

The approach with a high point buy, then purchasing a class does, however, allow for other options to be tacked on to it. Want a +1 LA template/race? Sure, that'll be 10 points. Want to start with more xp/money? Sure, that'll be 20 bucks 10 points. There's a lot more possibilities that way.

True enough. You can still do the same by giving specific classes higher point buys, but it's just more elegant the other way. The LA "buyoff" is a good idea, but I don't think the extra XP or gold is - the two values fluctuate too wildly an are entirely one-shot (in the event you decide to blow some XP on a spell or gp on a consumable). Something like a bonus feat for the appropriate point buy value is doable, though.

Pathfinder goes around the "I want more money" with some traits like "Rich Parents" or "You have a store" that'll give you +200 to +500GP during character creation. But extra EXP I'm not sure that's good... The idea was to have a balance within the group with point buy, right?

Exactly, and in addition, any XP bonuses are likely to either matter little (for ones in the order of 100 XP, much like with spells) or be mitigated in short order through the concept of XP Is A River. Anything that doesn't fall into either of those two is likely to be far too large. I also don't like the extra gold traits either (nor the feat that 3.5 has for it), but maybe that's just me.