WLD: Scaled Point Buy vs. Free Point Buy

[Lin]

Just wondering what you think. When I (along with Zebra Shakes and ravensir) made my character, I didn't realize we were using a scaled point-buy system. Reason being, I never use point buy when I play, I just take the elite array or roll stats or make them up, depending on the character and the mood. I've already changed my character over to a scaled design, but before Zebra and Ravensir fix it, I was wondering if you prefered the scaled system or would be open to using a free sysyem? I think its silly, because it rewards you for playing "Johnny Above Average" with all 10-14s rather than taking some risks. Scaled point buy blatantly punishes risk taking and any extraordinary designed. I guess the counter is that unscaled lends to stat dumping, but if your first intent in playing a person and making a good character, no dumped stat is without reason. And to be sure, no dumped stat will go unpunished at some point in the many layers and levels of this abysslike maze. My low strength will no doubt get me tripped by every single flail and spiked chain in this place and URMEK's abysmal charisma will complete debilitate him whe it comes to any kind of parlay, which will no doubt be critical when the dungeon politics start to form and groups that can whip us need to be dealt with socially.

So, anyway, what do you think is better?

[Fangor the Fierce]

I myself have only used Scaled Point buy. I have not used the free system you metioned, but would be open to try it. Although, it is a bit late in this adventure to try that out.

On a side note: I must say, this group is a bit different than any other games I have played. We still don't know what each one does, as I can only deduce that the Kobold Deidra is some sort of Rogue, and the Orc is some sort of tough guy. Other than that, I don't know what each of the other characters does really. It is a bit of a hinderence, as I do not know who to ask for what kind of action.

[Lin]

Yeah, but on that point, its better. Deidre has no clue what anyone does, they all look the same to her besides there equipment which is generally how she is going to refer to people until she actually gets to know them. After some real adventuring we'll figure out everyone's strengths and weaknesses, because its not like anyone bothered to make detailed, formal introductions (even though you tried to make them!).

[TheUdjat]

I prefer scaled point buy. I believe, rather than punishing risk-taking, it actually makes risk-taking risky. If you have to devote more points to a given stat, than it requires a lot more comittment, doesn't it? If anything, it discouraging min/maxing and power gaming. I don't know about groups you've played in, but I've dealt with my fair share of that, and the basic guide to it is 18's, as many as you can manage. When an 18 costs 16 points instead of 10 points, it's a lot less appealing. This way 18's are less common, and therefore more valuable in the gaming world - Not every fighter in the game is running around with an 18 strength, and not every wizard is running around with an 18 intelligence. If you want REALLY high stats, you have to pay a price for them. I really, really like that.

High stats are fun, but I like balance. Johnny Average is just not balanced with Joey Minmax, but in this light he can be. That's my take on it, though.

As for the tripping - actually, you can oppose trip attempts with your dexterity, so I think you're alright But I know what you meant.

[Lin]

That is, until Joey Min-max who dumped his Wis and Cha (most common dump stats) for 18s in his 3 physical stats insults a short tempered cleric of higher level and eats hold person/Coup de Grace. Since he has no soical grace, common sense or will save this is likely. Meanwhile, Johnny Average can hold a conversation with some profiancy (Or knows to let someone else talk if he can't!) and have a higher chance of passing said will save if he missteps.

It really depends on the DM and players I guess. In my group, if you have an 8, you pay for it not just in stat ways, but in small ways that reflect the fact that your character has a failing in some area, particularly the mental stats. If the players ONLY care about applying a negative 1 to certain skill checks, I guess its much less meaningful.

But than again, I often just pick stats for my character if I know what I want to play, so I might have a different point of view.

And just replace "trip" with "bull rush" and "sunder". My mistake.

[Japic]

I'm not sure what your idea of a free point buy is, but I think that the standard one helps to keep all things even.

Example. In our pen and paper group we have a fellow that likes to powerplay EVERYTHING. When rolling, his stat's are nearly maxed, 'I really rolled em'. When in combat or asking for any kind of a skill check he get's alteast 5 criticals (per night) with near max damage and success rates. Quite frankly somewhere between him and his dice they tell tall tales sometimes.

Needless to say that with the standard point buy system it makes ceratin that every character has the equal opportunity for his ability scores. Whether the fighter wants to use 16 points for his strength, or the wizard for his intelligence, it keeps everyone on the same page. How a person uses the points they've been given is really up to them. It allows us to be unique but equal. Although it's not quite as fun as rolling for the scores it makes the whole game much more well rounded. And leaves no chance to 'cheat' on the ability scores.


That's just my two bits as a player and DM. Have a good one.

[Lin]

A free buy is just like a regular buy without the scaling.

That is:

8: 0
9: 1
10: 2
11: 3
12: 4
13: 5
14: 6
15: 7
16: 8
17: 9
18: 10

I'm just throwing the idea up in the area, not really because I expect it to be agreed with, but because I don't want to help two people write over there stats =)

Seriously, I think high stats over overrated. I admit I was surprised when the point buy was 32 because that seemed high (average stat 13.67), but with scaling it makes some sense. I'm still not sure how Johnny Above Average isn't blatantly superior in this system though. . .

[TheUdjat]

It all goes back to ability dependency. Some classes are just naturally dependent on certain characteristics to be high. Some classes need less attributes to be high than others. It depends on what you want to do, but the short of it is that having an 18 and an 8 is roughly equivalent to having two 15's. Or a 14 and a 16. It doesn't seem like it, but those modifiers can have a big difference on the game, but in different ways.

Example: Paladins, monks, bards, rangers, and clerics/druids (to some degree) need more than just a stat or two to be truly excellent. On the other hand, Wizards, Sorcerers, Fighters, and rogues really don't. You give a wizard high intelligence and nothing else, and he is NOT equal to a monk that has high wisdom and nothing else. However, a wizard with high intelligence and nothing else is roughly equivalent to a monk that has a few above average stats (Wisdom, strength, and dexterity for instance). Likewise, a fighter with high strength and nothing else is not equal to a Paladin with high strength and nothing else, but roughly equal to a Paladin with a few above average stats (str, charisma, wisdom). It balances out, in its way.

What's my point? Making it that easy to get all-around high stats tends to unbalance things. By staggering the costs, you can balance this out a bit, or even urge people to come up with different types of those classes that usually only need one characteristic. You get less generic stuff when you're forced to tweak stats around, and that's always a plus.

Now, you can argue 'if you play it right' and such endlessly. If played right, any set of rules works fine. But the idea is to aim for a system that will almost always consistently satisfy everyone involved, regardless of whether everyone wants to 'play fair' or not. Leave as little room for abuse as possible.

[Lin]

But staggered makes it simple to have all round high stats, but not extreme stats.

A 32 point buy, staggered or otherwise, 14/14/14/14/14/10. Anyone who isn't a full progression caster certainly will find this superior to a staggered 18/14/14/10/10/8, one stat class or no. Because, frankly, there is no one stat class. EVERYONE suffers from poor Con, regardless of class, but Wizards/Sorc especially need it for HP and Concentration. EVERYONE suffers from poor Dex. To a lesser extent, EVERYONE suffers from poor Wis and Cha. I'm sure there are plenty of times low Str and Int will come into play to (Sunder that wand of enervation!). Sure, the fighter packing stat line #1 will be better at hitting and damaging, but it that all that comprises a D&D game? 2 lower spot/listen/sense motive, 2 lower will save, 2 fewer skills and irritating rather than unremarkable. Under a unscaled system the character could sure up his intellegence and have some skills outside of combat or sure up his will save a little. But still not both, making him either more vunerable or less useful than Johnny Average. And nevermind if Johanny average is a Paladin and moves that 14 intellegence to charisma. . .

Even without a "played right" way of thinking, I think higher stats are overrated. Maybe in an adventuring party having specialists is more powerful than generalists. But maybe having generalists comes in handy when parties get split up and racial prejudices/language gaps prevent the face from talking to the much more powerful cleric to give him a good reason not to smite them =). Or when fighting Oozes/Golems and other high immunity creatures for that matter.

But, it seems obvious we are not going to rewrite every character sheet, so no matter. I'll love my S6 and thats that.

[Lin]

But I do find it funny that nobody noticed this on my sheet (which was 40 pt buy) or Zebra's sheet (38). I guess no one cares how high your stats are when your a low strength Kobold, but once a high strength orc rolls in, BAM!!!! Red lights!

[TheZebraShakes™]

Fangor77 said:

I Although, it is a bit late in this adventure to try that out.

.

It's not too late at all, if everyone's willing, it's just a couple of numbers.

Hell, I could just as easily have said that it was too late and I don't want to change my character sheet to sync up with everyone else's, but I did it anyway in good spirit, even though my character's charisma and dexterity suffered, which sucks, cause now I am worse at shooting a bow armour class suffers, so I'm more likely to die like a wizard then I was at the start, and my hugely charisma based character has to get buy with a 14 rather then the 16 I originally intended.
So if it's not too late for us to change for the worse our character ideas which we had already planned and intended to play, why is it too late for you to slightly revamp your characters. I'm not seeing it.

I think the stats are as important as you make them, there's no need for me to be playing a wizard with 16 charisma, I could've just dumped it all for more dexterity or strength, but I thought it important for the character idea.

but whatever, no big thing, only it bothers me that the idea was shut down simply because it is too late when it obviously is not.

why is everyone so hung up on balance, I'm just not getting it, what, do you get mad cause your archer or ranger can't arch or range as well as the other guy's archer or ranger.

In my group like he said, we roll for stats, so that makes for extremely different characters in terms of stats, so maybe that's why I don't fully understand why everyone wants to take their 14s and 10s and love them. characters are unique, so why can't the stats reflect this.

I am reminded of the Paladin with 6 dexterity who kept falling off of his horse in the middle of combat, sure, it may not have been fair or balanced, but who cares, it made for hysterical situations and everyone loved it.

sorry, I forgot my point entirely

[Lin]

And more importantly, this Paladin was in second edition, where you made ability checks. All the time. Being the average score for 4d6 drop is (rounded down) 12, or a 60% chance of passing the test, good onld Destrianolous Coven had a 30% chance of success. Compared to third ed where its -10% and +5% respectively, or exactly twice as important. Which meant twice the insane situations where he fell off something and got into trouble. Man, he was fun, if only for that.

On balance, in my P&P game I don't really care for it. You can come in with a 60 point buy character if you want, but you'll probably be bored to tears when there are 0 encounters in six ten hour sessions when the rest of the party is up to other things as they often are. All that matter to me is that the characters are interesting to play with. Stats, backstory, etc. are all pretty meaningless when roleplaying is the focus.

In a game with strangers (so to speak), I balance means a little more since no one has the same expectation. However, you can handle this different ways.

When I ran an IRC D&D game, many years ago, it wa simple. We ran a huge session with 2 DMs and about 9 characters. The ones who didn't fit the same spirit as the group didn't come to the second session, either by choice (eh, this game doesn't suit me) or by force (Sorry, but you can't play next week). No need for rules on attributes, no need to have strict tables for giving treasure per encounter. Just finding people that fit. The ogre did outfight EVERYONE, but was nicely counterbalanced when his low mental stats got him in trouble (addicted to stimulants and other things) and sadly, killed. It wasn't "balance" that kept that game fun. Rather, the people kept it fun and I never been in a game where I have thought "Man, this game would be more fun if the characters were more balanced." That said, it is dull when one character blatantly outclass one in every conievable way or when extraordinary measures need to be taken to move the spotlight around. But, again, when you've got people working together that just doesn't happen.

Lets not pretend either that staggered point buy alone creates balance and that all classes and races are created equal, because that would be foolish. Cleric and Druid are both superior to every other PHB class and dwarf gets more than a few advantages over the other PHB races at really no cost if you are playing a class that utilizes medium/heavy armor.

But, the most important thing is that everyone be happy. So if the group likes staggered buys better, we use staggered buys. I'm sure everyone here is perfectly capable of roleplaying a character above and beyond there stats (even if they really wanted 16 charisma). Because, as TheZebraShakes says, they are just stats. In the end its a cooperative Role Playing Game, where everyone is pitching in to tell the bet possible story. With some dice and monsters and stuff.

[Fangor the Fierce]

TheZebraShakes said:

It's not too late at all, if everyone's willing, it's just a couple of numbers.

Well, look at it this way. With going scaled point buy, we are having to change/modify 2 character sheets. With going non scaled, that would be 7 sheets being edited/modified. I would rather keep with the tried and tested scaled system. It seems to work and is balanced. But if this had come up prior to the character creations, I would have been all for trying it out at least.

[K Man]

It's not too late at all, if everyone's willing, it's just a couple of numbers.

I agree with Zebra, if change is warranted, it's never too late.

--

Just to add my thoughts to all of this, as many of you know, I don't like the rules, I like the story. (Case evident by some players complaining they haven't drawn their sword in a year online. : The stats and scores really mean nothing to me as they are just numbers, liquid things that fall victim to my whim anyway. You all could have solid 40's in every score and you know how much of a difference the game would be? Battles would run quicker as you would rarely miss...but the story would still advance at the same pace and you would still have to bow to authority, in-game consequences and parley.

And, as Lin pointed out, the true goal of this is to have everyone be happy. Otherwise, it's a waste of time and effort on all the part of all involved. In the above story, you don't walk away remembering the paladin had a 'short' stat, but you do walk away with visions of an armored man collapsing to the ground everytime he pulls his blade from sheath atop a horse. The game is memorable, not the scores and numerical representations....

[BluSpecs]

/begin cough syrup induced ramble

Yay, A good discussion without flaming!

When I look at peoples characters I don't look at stats as much as description and back story.

I know my barbarian in WLD is suffering from his stats. With a 6 in INT and CHR and an 8 in WIS he's getting his ass handed to him by the traps/saves needed/spotchecks. Hell we found an orc to parley with that only I could speak with. that CHR was really helping me out there

Sure my uber physical stats are cool but I pay for not being senor average....

/end ramble

[Fangor the Fierce]

Yes, I agree, good discussion. In looking back at the characters, it does seem a little harsh at times to have such colorful and well thought out characters with intruiging backgrounds and storylines. As you look at the story, you have a certain character in mind, and then the stat limitation, due to point scaling just doesn't do enough to let their true personailties take effect. I like the characters, and their stories. I have read each one of them at least twice and then the stats just don't do it for me. Sure, you can find magical items to enhance stats, but with their backgrounds, it shouldn't have to be that way. Going with Free Point, you could make it worthwhile, by allowing those characters to grow in areas that are deemed as necessary by their character progressions and thoughts. But not having ever tried out this free point buy, I would not know what a good number to use would be. After all, it's KMAN's final decision. I would be all for free point buy, and if we need to come to a decision, now would be the time, before this first battle/encounter takes place.

I guess the thing that gets to me is the fact that by the rules, in 3.5, you are only allowed a 1 point stat increase every 4 levels. Sure it's nice, but I would think that with character growth, it would/should be more frequent than this. But that's just me...

[K Man]

After all, it's KMAN's final decision.

Sort of...I proposed Lin get the player support on this one. I allow it, but the players have to be OK with it.

It's your world Holmes...I'm just livin' in it...

[Fangor the Fierce]

In that case, you know I would go for the new free point buy in a heartbeat!!! So what's that make this, 3 votes now? Out of nine...

[Japic]

One thing that is always good to remember is that even if your stats are higher, KMan can always adjust the baddies to keep the challenge equal.


Regarding the Stats in general though, I really don't see what the big deal is about this. You have to consider that average people, every day peasents, have scores between 5 and 10 for all of their stats, right? You as a 1st level adventurer are already far superior to any commoner that you come across. The point is that you are already huge in comparison, so why bother with taking any more skill points. You are already above average in most ways (sans the occasional really low stat), and you will improve as time goes on. That's more than any commoner could ever hope for. They'll have crappy stats forever, while you will always be growing and evolving.

To address the character concept point. What difference does it make to your concept and background if you have a 14 vs a 16 in any given stat? That doesn't change who you are all that much. If you say that you are smart, but 'only have a 16' you have to consider that it's already much higher than the common man. How does that affect how your background is layed out?

Let's run with Int for an example. You're a 1st level wizard with a 14 Int. You have spells in your book and that you can memorize (limited by class, not attributes). You buy your skills, alloting (for saying sake) all points possible into knowledge skills. You have ample opportunity to 'know' things now, things that you may have seen or described in your background. Now let's take the next 1st level wizard with 18 Int. You have the exact same spells (per the class) and spend the extra few skill points in everything BUT knowledge skills. You don't know jack for knowledge rolls. But in either circumstance from above you get the same result for your background. What your stats are should never really effeect you background. It's not like having a lower intelligence (14) dissallows you from being a character. You are already much smarter that lots of people, including many of your fellow adventurers. So you tell me what colassal difference comes from using the regular point buy to the modified one? How does that effect the character concept?

If I write into my background that I usd to be an archmage, and my stat's don't reflect that, perhaps I'm shooting a little high for my character's background. Afterall, they are just beginning adventurers. Regular people today, heroes later.


What Bluspecs and ZebraShakes said above is a very good example of how the games are affected by the stats you get. In the case of the Paladin, can you expect a farmer to do any better? Hell, the farmer can't even use a sword, much less draw one on horseback. Adventurers are people too, so having the occasional average stat is nothing to gripe about in my opinion. You can already do more at 1st level anything than a dozen farmers combined could ever hope to do.

[Fangor the Fierce]

Oh don't get me wrong, I understand why there is the scaled point system and the balance it provides. I was saying that I would be all for trying the other point buy system out. You asked what collosal difference there would be? None. That's the point. If there's not such a collosal difference for it, then there shouldn't be a collosal difference against it.

One thing that comes to mind though are feats. With so many stipulations on feats and required stats, that would allow characters to have more options to feats. True, this does not warant a collosal difference, but a worthy one to consider.