How do you generate your parties?

Used to roll my character, for a sum of up to 90 or so. Nowadays I use the point buy exploit since I don't have the patience to roll over 1000 times. I generally treat my characters as if I had 32 points to spend in the point buy system, as opposed ToEE's very limited 24.

 

I don't know ... There's something special about rolling until you get that "awesome character" that I don't get by manipulating the stats through screen changes.

 

I think the best I ever rolled straight up for a character was 18, 17, 16, 16, 14 and 12, although I've managed to roll 2 18's a few times as well as once rolling 4 16's...

 

I'm with you on this. I actually really enjoy character generation, and there is something special about high stats when you have to work for them!

 

What I also find interesting is that almost no one uses the point buy system. I think this was possibly the worst introduction to D&D, the concept of 'fairness' gone mad. I can understand it with regards to balancing CRPGs, but I don't like a system that makes everyone the same - it always drove me to build very similar characters. It seems I am not the only one who preferred the prior system!

 

It's easy.

Just Go Click...2...3...click...2...3... with your eyes out of focus until you get a couple of 18's. Then see what else you got. It seems to take around 50 rolls each time.

 

Hah Hah, have you ever rolled sooooooooo many times you see a 13 and think it's an 18?

 

You bet. I just stop and look. If I still can... :dizzy:

 

I usually write all the classes on strips of paper and pull them out of a hat. I also only roll once, then decide which class those stats would be best for. No reloading.

This is the best way to play!

 

I am playing what I call Super Ironman at the moment:
1 - no reloads
2 - take what you roll, no moving the stats
3 - random roll for race (1-4 human, then down the list, D10)
4 - pick a class
5 - No raising, when they die they're dropped, and replaced with a new 1st level character
6 - Start with 2 PCs then add 1 each time you have succeeded in returning from a mission and killing at least one enemy.
7 - Party max 7

Having a fun time. No deaths yet, even with one character who has 8 strength and 6 constitution, and no clerics/druids in the party either.

 

Ben, you're just a glutton for punishment.

 

Well I just lost 3 men to the bugbears in the moat house and I now have a PC whose highest stat is 12 intelligence, he has 8 strength and 3 constitution. I think that is my worst yet! He was so bad I had trouble picking a class, but opted for wizard with toughness in the end.

 

Meat Shield - just kill him off quickly.....

 

Point buy was actually a great idea, the "standard" amount of points is just too low. I'd consider using it in ToEE if it were 32-36pt. After all, every group I played in that used rolled stats always had some ridiculous number of house rules surrounding it-- it was NEVER just a 4d6-1 and assign.
I don't think the system makes everyone the same at all, especially when you add the ridiculous quantity of splatbooks and other content to the game. And really, no one ever complains about the entire party being unbalanced-- the DM can always make stuff easier or harder on the party as a whole. What the DM can't easily do, however, is find a way to challenge Angel Summoner without outright killing the BMX Bandit.

 

I think the problem with the point buy system and computer dnd games in general is there's just too much combat. It's pretty hard to get by if there's so much combat and you had pathetically low stats. Also, 1 spell casting per day? (Ok, maybe that's just me with my new bard), but you won't last more than 10 minutes of gaming without having to rest constantly which now forces me to take scribe scroll all the time for spell casting classes. This makes games like Fallout 1 and Torment really special in that you can finish it without fighting much (loved those 2 games).

This also changes the power level of some skills / feats like scribe scroll since it doesn't cost real life time to make scrolls and eliminates the main benefit of sorcerers, etc...

Not having played PnP so I can't be sure, but I'd think in pen and paper, it was more an adventure with friends and exploration and not so much non-stop combat...ToEE is pretty much hack-n-slash. It'd be great if someone bought the rights and kept the turn based combat engine and made more games out of it, but that doesn't sound too likely in this genre.

It could be fun to have pathetic stats for a while, but if you wanted to finish the game, it'll probably be impossible to do so if you haven't played it once through already before.

That said, I just rolled (after dieing each time) up my highest roll ever (18 15 17 16 18 18 = 102 (1 in 976,000 chance!)) for my ironman solo game and hope I get further this time...I've rerolled/died so many times that hopefully, this char can get me past some of tougher fights solo. Been getting killed by the Sea Hag which seems to have wrongly tweeked stats (+20 str bonus?!).

Playing a Bard 7 / Cleric 3. Mostly for the Charm Monster spell and Cleric 3 for the ability boosters.