Does anyone really use Point Buy?

I mean even without using the exploits, Rolling is still a better way to generate statss for your player characters.

Just needs a bit of patience though LOL.
Rolled up a monk with good stats s-17, dex-17, con-14, i-12, wis-17, cha-10.
With the right items , the monk now has a regular AC of 35 and can dish out a world of hurt with the halfling Siangham or quarterstaff. A judicious application of barkskin from a druid and using a wand of shield (invested points in use magic device as well as crafting circlet of persuasion) before battles results in a nearly unhittable character capable of dishing out damage as well

Can't imagine creating such a characer with point buy.

 

I did. I wanted party with not so high stats.

 

It is my sincere belief that the game was balanced for point buy when tested by Troika. 17/17/14/12/17/10 is essentially a 51 point buy pool as compared to 25, so if you are finding the game too easy well you have your reason before you. A real PnP DM can scale challenges accordingly for players who start with high stats but this isn't possible in ToEE so IMHO, a standard point pool allows developers to assess party strength the best at any given time.

Still players are free to enjoy the game in any manner they like and I will admit that Monks are stat-intensive characters, so use whichever form of stat generation is most comfortable for your tastes.

 

The best thing about point buy is that you can click up one stat to 18, then drag it slightly to the right of the arrows beside it and drop the stat. The area you're dropping it onto is actually the same space as the yellow boxes are in the Basic/Rolling screen.

Click back and forth between Basic and Advanced after dropping each stat and you can make a full party with 18's in every stat. Not 100% sure this works with all the patches applied, but it definitely works pre-patch.

 

You cannot fault Troika for making the rolling method as they did. The point buy system sucks. How can one expect a "special" character with only 25 points? It is pathetic. I am not saying you can have a party of all paladins, but they are real characters and to use points to make them is pathetic. I posted elsewhere that adventurers are SUPPOSED to be special, better than the average. I would expect better stats than what the point buy system can do.

You may argue that point, but the fact is: heros are better than us. That is why they are heros. It is due to action, conviction and bravery, and you simply need better stats to have that happen. Others can cheat and give stats of all 18 (or better), but you cannot fault the user for using what has been provided and using that to their full advantage. As a DM, I only used the 4d6 with one discard ONLY. That way, the player gets what they want, are happy, and I can adjust accordingly. The 25 point buy in nowhere near as good as that.

 

You know there is an editor at sorcerer's place that will let you put your characters stats at whatever you would like (it lets you change stats at character creation).

I'm not sure what you mean by using point buy to create characters being pathetic, but point buy certainly makes the game more challenging. Just because your characters are heroes they don't have to have high stats in everything I think, just their one or two important stats need to be up there.

 

Actually roll 4d6, drop lowest is the standard for rolling attributes and is the formula used for rolling in ToEE. The distribution is shown here: http://sandcat.nl/rpg/dice/
You will find that the expected average is about 12.245 which works out to having an excess of 4.245 when starting from base 8. Therefore rolling 4d6, drop lowest for 6 stats yields an excess
of 25.47 when starting from base 8, which is basically the same as point buy, which is base 8, 25 point pool. As you cannot distribute points freely when rolling, there will be a few wasted points in non-key stats.
I have absolutely no problem with roll 4d6, drop lowest. It is used in Ironman games and makes for a fair game.

However if you are going attempt repeated rolls with roll 4d6, drop lowest and then pick the best, the results are going to be much more skewed. Arguably you could even keep on rolling till you get all 18's but I really see little point in that.

Point buy is a fair system and has been used in IWD2, NWN and ToEE. It may have a slight bias in creating rather stereotyped characters as compared to the varied but I accept that price in return for fairness and balance.

 

Actually, it was the NWN posting that I brought up the point buy system.

My issue is that characters are supposed to be better than average. Who wants to play an "average Joe" who picks up a sword and walks into a cave? Hardly motivating. But, the budding hero, with obvious talents (strong, nimble, not the wisest but healthy) stands out, and is obviously going to succeed. Subtle difference.

In the point buy system, characters like Rangers, Monks and Paladins have a hard time. Give one ability 16 and try to fill in the rest to get stats that are 13/14. Pretty hard. Remember, these people are supposed to be better than average, not just above it, so my point is reitereated.

The disparity between the point buy and the Troika Roll (if you want to call it that) is too large to ignore. My next campaign is going to be Ironman, but in no way will I buy points. I want at least the best chance of success.

In any D+D campaign, how many of you had average or barely average characters? I never, as a DM allowed them. I want my players to identify with the characters they have, like them and fondly see them grow; in power, magic and levels. Hard to do when you can't play what you want. And it is better for me, as they will role-play better, be more excited, and give more enjoyment for all.

Consider point buy. You give the fighter a 16/17 strength, then what. Con, Dex, what is more valuable. Everything else is 8 or 9. Not heroic in my book. I suppose each see it differenly, but the bottom line is fun, and if you, as a DM, can't find a way to make the monsters harder to compensate, then you favor the players too much. Give it some thought. There is no way ANY encounter can be too easy. A medium or large dragon should give most parties an extremely hard time, IF THE DRAGON IS PLAYED RIGHT. I fear most DM favor the characters (naturally) and make the game too easy. The first rule any DM learns is to be FAIR. Monster and Character alike. If the stats go up, then so do the monsters. Easy.

 

You're still missing the point. 10 is the 'average' stat for a an adult human. With points-buy, that's just 12 points. A 25-point character is twice as good as that.

With 25 points, you can get a solid character that expects to grow (remember +1 attribute point every 4th level).

Very often, it's not the hero's strengths that define him, but his limitations.

Using much higher stats for players usually means a faster escalation within the campaign -- this may be what you want, but it does mean you will have to do a lot of work with the existing published materials to make them fit.

 

D+D is a game of fantasy, and normal is not what the game is about. You play D+D to suspend reality, and if you wish to play with normal characters that are marginally better than average, then so be it.

I am fully aware that magic, spells and wishes can raise scores, but this assumes you find them, or have a DM that allows them. I am old school, and I do not play the rules where ability points can be raised every 4 levels. Cavaliers, maybe (as in Gygax's printing of UA) but not for others. Of course point buy seems okay; every 4 levels the points go up in additon to whatever.

Each to their own, and I guess styles vary. But this game TOEE, doesn't change relative to the stats of the party. Weaker stats make a harder game, so much so, that an initiate to D+D would have little hope without intimate knowledge of the D+D game. Those lifelong D+D'ers, and we know who we are, can maximize what we are given but not everyone can say this.

 

Well...

Troika's devs need to be hammered for being idiots anyway (sorry, have to say it....). The World of Greyhawk is considered a 'tough campaign' and is supposed to have a 28pt buy anyway. I know its not much, but 3 points make a difference.

 

What does it matter anyway

High stats, low stats, what does it matter? It's the enjoyment of playing different characters that counts. I used to play, and DM, AD&D games some years ago and some of the best characters had one or two high stats, and one or two low stats (a strong character with a weakness in some area). I remember a character with only 3 Constitution. For the first three or four levels he was always hanging back in fights, getting the other characters to shield him. Everytime he got hit he nearly always went out for the count. It was an interesting experience watching how the other players handled this. Thus the low stat made for an interesting game. Even the player himself looked back with fondness on this low stat character, because just surviving a battle was a major triumph! High or low, there is enjoyment in either, it's just a matter of how you look at it, and how you approach the game. People who think only god-like characters are playable are in my opinion missing half the fun. The game is about having fun and low stat characters can sometimes be fun in ceratin situations. AD&D was after all supposed to be about role-playing not winning, right? So enjoy.

 

I totally agree, but you and I are the type of players who know this and can appreciate the quirks that low stats can offer. Most players, in my experience, found that playing a low stat was hard (and it is if you try to be honest), but in the initial stages, I believe average or better stats is important. Consider:

In my campaign, the reality of a character with a 3 Con would play out as follows:

I allow max HP at first level. With your character, better hope they are not a Wizard. I would check for disease every month, or if you are near filth. In a damp dungeon, you would get sick (and I would deduct strength points to reflect this). Wet weather would give you the cold, and poison saving throws would be, well, hard to make. I am not being a bad DM, only logically extrapolating from known facts. I cannot play favorites: if I were to favor you none of this would happen. But a character with a 3 Con would fall over in a stiff breeze. This is a fact. Just as a character with a 3 STR would be unable to carry more than a lunch pack. Similar scenarios with such a character would be applied.

You can look at it in any way you want. My only point is that I believe the PC should be better; how much is an open debate. Average, perhaps not, but godlike would be absurd. But I can assure you, I have had characters with godlike stats come to my campaign, and they always found wandering monsters, Dragons at full strength (who always used breath weapons on the first 3 tries), max numbers of appearing................. You get the point.

 

Adventure first, stats second

The fact that you had god-like characters come into your campaigns and you dealt with them by throwing high level monsters, Dragons at full strength, maximum numbers of such tells me that it is the challenge that is important to you, not the fact that all the players have above average stats. This confirms what I was saying about low stats making things interesting; it's the challenge.

There is a basic flaw in all level based roleplaying games which ultimately limits how high players can go and how powerful they can become. It is this: the players play to see their favourite characters get more powerful to the point where they can beat everything thrown at them. It is a psychological need. For the DM the game is about unfolding a story, seeing it played out, watching over it and guiding the players along to the conclusion, rewarding the players as they go, challenging them when needed, and keeping the game playable. At some point these two different goals clash and render the game unplayable.

Players want more and more power, especially if in real life they feel they don't have any. So a low stat to such a person is a real pain (bugbear, DM joke!) I dealt with such types not by massaging their low self esteem by caving into their whingeing about that 3 Constitution but by encouraging them to see the possibilities in that 18 Intelligence, and reminding them that it's a role-playing game of adventure and discovery not just a game about numbers and plus this or plus that (too many players think in terms of stats, of how many plus's they have). Sure a 3 Strength character might not be able to lift very much, but his 17 strength friend might and they can compliment each other. That's role-playing. I de-emphasis the winning element and emphasis the adventure. I accept there is ultimately a clash of objectives (power versus interesting game) so I keep player levels to below 20) In fact if a player came to me with all high level stats for their character and I hadn't seen that it was fairly rolled I wouldn't even let it into the campaign. I had a player boast to me once that in another game he had a character reach level 100 with an Intelligence of 30. I wasn't impressed. Instead I felt sorry for him, and also for the DM. Give me a a party of low level characters over this monstrosity anyday, high and low stats included.
This is how I see things. Others may differ of course.

 

You will have to forgive me. I do NOT play the rules where someone can get ANY score over 25. Essentially, 20 and above in my book is for gods and demigods.

In my old school ways, we retired most characters at about 15 to 20 in level, despite the paladin only getting interesting by this time. Simply put, if played right, any character of such level should pose a major problem. Granted, there are devils, demons and extraplanatar creatures to kill, but even then it gets boring. The fun, for us, is not the achieving but the building. Planning ahead to getting that suit of armour, or better weapon...etc... At least in the ORIGINAL D+D (red, blue, green, black and gold boxes) you had imortality to shoot for. But now it is only an open ended game. In the original AD+D world I do not think Gygax forsaw characters of 100 level. 25, perhaps, was even a stretch. Calculate out the experience needed for a level 25 Magic User in the original AD+D books and you will clearly understand. Every coin found would have to be platinum.

I am not a fan of the 3.5 rules. I believe that they were modified to make the game inherently easier for the character and thus more enjoyable, hence, it will sell more. Don't kid yourself, this game is about money. It is a business to WoTC and that is how they see it. The days of this game being made for purely alturistic purposes are over, long gone. Sometimes the more things change, the worse they get.

The DM must be able to modify the game to suit the conditions presented. There is nothing wrong with low stats; they are and can be fun, but most players don't WANT them. Would you want a child with only 1 eye or a deformity or lacking severely in some way? We all care for the things we cherish, and characters to the player are no exception. I am only saying that in the D+D universe I occupy, it is MY belief the PC is better, and the character should reflect that. You have to remember, that a character with high stats can still fail, quite easily, if they are poorly played. I would challenge you to play The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth to the full, not playing any favorites, and you will quickly see my point. I have had many demise in that module not because I wanted it, but the lack of true playing ability could not bring out the true abilities manifested by the character sheet.