Rolling dice Vs point buy

[10d10]

So, this came up in a discussion with my friends and I wanted to hear your opinion: what approach do you prefer to use in a game, point buy or rolling dice? How about life? Do you roll for it or take half of your HD automatically?

Even though point buy balances the attributes for each character in a group, it seems to put every character from the same class in a strange position. If your group has (for some reason) 2 monks, or 2 fighters, or 2 sorcerers, chances are they'll be pretty much the same thing (stats-wise).

On the other hand, a couple of my friends (specially those who came from AD&D) prefer the old "rolling 3d6 and taking chances". This gives a different approach on each character stats, but opens a window for a group with a very skilled character and a very unskilled one in the same party.

Sure it can be fun sometimes to play with a character who has a significant disadvantage (I had played with one of those, she had very neat stats... except for one, which was a 4 and gave significant challenges for her to overcome and turned into a plot hook), but its never very well balanced unless your DM pays attention to it.

So, any thoughts?

[Agita]

Point buy. No contest. Not only does it screw with the balance of the party, on a more fundamental level it also holds a great chance of increasing the gap between natively weaker and stronger classes - as the latter, especially caster, tend to only need one or two stats to be high, which is very possible when rolling, and the latter generally need three or four, which becomes increasingly improbably. Further, this ties into gaming philosophy. Should the results of a single die roll be permanent for the whole rest of a character's carreer? No - a single d20 roll in combat means a failed or successful attack roll, but the whole of the battle is the sum of all rolls made during it. This is also part of why people don't like Save or Dies from a game design standpoint.

Rolling for hit points carries similar implications, but it's not as much of a dealbreaker to me, personally. There was a thread similar to this a while ago concerning itself primarily with rolling for hit points, in fact.

[LordBlades]

Point buy, definitely, for numerous reasons:

-I like to decide what to play(both RP and mechanics wise) and then set the stats the way I want them. Let's say I want to play an introvert wizard, the kind who spent his whole life going through book after book in a library/university, and then I roll something like 12 12 12 14 14 16(or any non dump-stat combination). It's kind of hard to explain why my wizard that never went out of the library much is stronger, faster, healthier and more charismatic than the average guy. On the other hand, if I want to play something MAD, a roll along the lines of 18 and 5 low-ish rolls doesn't help much (while not being a bad roll in itself).
-party balance. It's not a big issue (some kinds of players don't need better rolls to break it, while others will moderate themselves) but having vastly different stats doesn't help either.
-too much weight on a single roll. No other roll or set of rolls in the game affects your character more than your stat rolls. Even if you roll badly vs. a save-or-die, you can be resurrected. IF you roll badly on your stats, only 'cure' is a new char.

[RobbyPants]

I prefer point buy, although, if my group were to pitch a big enough fit, I'd offer this compromise: everyone rolls a set of stats (based on whatever rolling method we're using), and all of those stats are available for everyone to use. So, if one guy rolls super great, then chances are, everyone uses those stats.

The whole, roll 3d6 thing from back in the day was really to differentiate characters back before there were things like skills, feats, and even non-weapon proficiencies. It's what made fighter A different from fighter B. It's not really necessary now.

[sirpercival]

Also back then, the stats you rolled determined what you could play.

My personal preference is just to assign everyone an array. 

[Hallack]

Either is fine.  I like point buy for the reason pretty much said already, control, party parity of stats, etc..

But talking the chances and playing what the dice give can also be a hoot.  Maybe some of that is hold over from older editions but the thrill of rolling that high score is similar in some ways to randomly rolling that sweet piece of treasure used to be. 

This choice comes down to what we are wanting at the time from our game.  Most recently we have been doing point buy games but I certainly wouldn't mind if our next game returned to the rolling. 

Cheers

[10d10]

Something one of my DMs does to avoid that "playing what you want" is to make a middle ground between those two systems: he estimate a roof for the total points a character has on their attributes (lets say... 92). So the players are free to roll more than once to find the number which allowed them to play a wizard or a bard or a smart fighter....

Sure I'm not advising this to anyone because depending on the group it'll turn into "you have 92 points do put into 6 stats" and that was not the idea of having a point roof.

[10d10]

The whole, roll 3d6 thing from back in the day was really to differentiate characters back before there were things like skills, feats, and even non-weapon proficiencies. It's what made fighter A different from fighter B. It's not really necessary now.

This argument will be WAY MORE appealing to my old school friends than the whole "balance" thing lol They're all about characterization and trademark for their characters. "Bob, the clumsy bard", "Astro, the fugly yet wise wizard" etc etc

[Hallack]

Even back in the "olden days" we tended to roll 4d6 and drop the lowest, and often even roll two sets.  So, while there was some randomness it actually tended to equate the high end (sometimes very high end) point buy. 

[veekie]

Rolling has a role when you're trying to get the system to make the character for you. Very good for one shots and also randomly defining character capabilities.

[Agita]

Rolling has a role when you're trying to get the system to make the character for you. Very good for one shots and also randomly defining character capabilities.

This depends strongly on the system. Some systems are designed for randomly rolled characters and can be wildly fun in their own right, but D&D is much more complex than must such systems. As such, I'm strongly against it, even for oneshots.

[Slaughterhouserock]

I see the merit in point buy, but, due to coming from older editions and enjoying the total randomness of it, rolling has always been my preference.  Almost all of my gaming groups over the years have used 4d6, drop the lowest, and re-roll one's, which has always led to fairly decent scores for everyone.

[SneeR]

There is a joke amongst my circle of friends:
I AM FREAKiING CURSED WHEN ROLLING D6s! I once had to play a monk with 14 13 13 12 11 10. Those are the sorts of stats I ALWAYS roll up. My friends roll for me because they pity me... I really wanted to play a monk, but I was by far the worst character, and people still tease me for how boisterously I roleplayed The Boulder when he didn't have the raw numbers to back anything up.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Point buy, no contest.  It's reaching the point where a game with rolled stats is even sometimes a deal breaker for me joining.


Also prefer some form of fixed hp (3/4 or max, generally, 1/2 doesn't make the higher HD classes stand out enough), though I'll play in a game with rolled hp.  I just won't play anything with a d10 or d12 and tend towards being a d4 arcanist with massive con in those sorts of games.

[McBeardly]

As most people before me said point buys are the way to go.

[bruceleeroy]

My initial gut reaction is to call all of you point buy lovers pussies, for being afraid to take chances. That being said, in the last year or two, my group has been playing mostly high powered games, with a roll 4d6, drop the lowest, re-roll ones, which comes out to somewhere around a 36 or 40 point buy.

But for the first ten years or so I played it was 3d6, re-roll if total modifiers is below +1. I had plenty of characters with abysmal stats. I suppose it all depends on the table. Nowadays, we're all very familiar with the ins and outs of the rules, even the obscure ones, and table time has shifted from a majority of role-play to a majority of rules lawyering. Which might have something to do with the drinking problems...or is it vice versa.

Anyways, different variants for different games, I guess.

[TC X0 Lt 0X]

Point-Buy.
Nothing can destroy a character concept better then unusable stats.

[Jackinthegreen]

For solid character creation, I'd rather go with point buy.  Getting screwed by the dice gets rather annoying when you have a specific concept in mind.

Of course, it's possible to get screwed with PB too.  Anything lower than 30 will tend to drive MAD character, well, mad.  Taking a chance on the dice can be quite rewarding.

[Dilvish]

Best of both worlds: make the players roll the dice, then give them the results the best one rolled.

[steenan]

I prefer pointbuy and average HP when creating characters for a campaign. This lets players customize their characters to fit their concepts and prevents a single dice roll from dominating months or years of play.

For one-shots, I prefer rolling, as I want random stats to inspire nontypical characters - and this includes randomness in stat placement, so the standard "4d6 drop lowest, assign as you like" does not work.