Point Buy Challenge

Let me first say I am a recovering power-gamer and am used to playing with elite PCs who usally have superb stats. But after playing TOEE for a while, things got a little stale for me. So I was reading a thread (I think it was by Kalshane, sorry if I got this wrong) about how to make the game more challenging.

It challenged players to give NPCs max hps and make PCs by the Point Buy Method.

I have been playing this way and let me just say wow! It is a whole new game. You have to make hard, hard choices about what are your PCs going to excell in and what are they going to suck at. (You can spread it around, but the modifiers are still low. I feel like its best to maximize strengths and flaws.) I'm struggling with multiclassing since I really like to sell out to a class's strengths. (Any insights?)

Point Buy also really makes racial choice alot more important. I used to never play anything but humans. (It wasn't worth giving up a feat, for +2 in an attribute if you have super PCs.) But now, that +2 to STR or DEX matters, because it costs 6 points at creation to get you from 16 to 18. That means HOrcs, Elves, etc can be more topped out in a key attribute and be higher in a secondary and tertiary attribute(s) than humans. (Now thats worth that extra feat.)

With these limited PCs, I have to be more mindful of their fragility, which leads to more strategic and tactical thought, and a wider use of feats for defensive purposes. ( I swear I only used about 4 or 5 different variation of feat patterns in the past.) Point Buy makes you consider a wider range of feats.

It also makes for equal PCs. They all start with the same number of points and just divide them differently.

I guess what I am getting at is an endorsement for the point buy challenge for gamers who want to spice up their TOEE games. I would also love to hear any insights or advice the co8 community has on this style of play.

 

I generally use the point buy cheat to be honest. I wouldn't say I make "super" characters. I tend to give each character an 18 in their primary stat, 16 in secondary and sneak in an 8 somewhere for my conscience

A dwarf Fighter might have 18/13/16/13/10/8 for example - just giving enough Dex and Int to get the more interesting feats.


I can't stand dice rolling at creation nor for HP and 25 points is a little too restrictive for my liking - NWN gave around the 30 mark and early game TOEE can be tricky enough as is.

Certainly, if you lack a character with 5-7 ranks in social skills by level 1/2, due to making hard choices, your going to be missing out on lots of Hommlet quest experience - making your early progression that much harder. That said, I actually feel that the experience rate could be lowered further - on the condition that quests give full experience.


A deliberately flawed party might be an amusing thing to make - can't say how far you'd reach though

 

If you go with 3 fighter types with high STR and CON, you can forgo the other stats. With 3 good frontliners, you can afford to have a high INT wiz with only has 4hps and low STR and a high WIS cleric who isn't good meleeing.

Yes you can miss a lot in Homlett without a good talker, but you can make up the XP with random road encounters. You actually make more money this way as well with so many humanoid encounter possibilities and their stuff to sell.

Later on in the game you can return to your power gaming roots with magic items, either found or crafted.

 

I have played this game a lot of times with the point buy sistem. After a lot of time of hard chalenges - and much more fun! - I have abandoned the method to use the stats I allow my players of the paper & pen games to use in table: 18, 16, 14, 12, 10 and 10. The only diference in the game and my P&P games is that I give my players 75% of the max hit points for HD after the first, and not 100%, and so I always use a -2 penalty to the Constituition score of my characters and put the Max HP per Level on - wich lower the total HP and the Fort saves a little; A compensation to meet better the creation of a character in my P&P games.

Just let me say that I NEVER have liked to play with overpowered characters - like 3x18 in Abilities or more - and I think that this make very boring characters to play; they become not heroes, but superheroes, and superheroes are veeeery boring....

 

Thanks for the feedback. I'm finding I like PC to suck at something. Those 8's or even 6's for HOrcs make me have to be more thoughtful.

For example, like the assassin thread, you have got to protect your weaker guys from rogues or its lights out. My tanks have to be serious about stopping rogues regardless of other physical threats.

My team has to be serious about stopping magic users or my tanks could get waxed or charmed into an enemy.

Its cool. You take defending your weaknesses alot more serious (just like real life, I find people are much more aware and sensitive of their weaknesses and that influences decision making alot more than strengths.)

 

Just have CHA a dump stat for everyone who doesn't need it (i.e. all except SOR and BRD and CLR); for SOR and BRD dump STR (it's not like you're gonna do much melee), for CLR dump DEX (heavy armour, anyway).

Point-buy is great if you do straight single-class characters. Since I'm utterly bored of playing "standard builds", I usually roll these days. It's not so much that I want to get better rolls, but that you can't go below min. 8 in point-buy which sort of sucks. I should be able to decrease my dump stat even lower to spend points elsewhere.

 

I nearly always use 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8 for my stats. (The easiest way to do this is roll until you get a 17, then swtich over to the point buy screen and pull the 17 into the slot you want to be 18, then add the additional point).

I never feel like these characters are super-powered, especially since I like using high Dex fighters. Even single-class casters have some challenege, because they can't have high casting ability, high AC, and high HP (clerics generally don't need worry about AC, of course).

I might have to try giving all NPCs max HPs, and using rolls for PCs. Since I've been thinking about a cleric heavy party, that might be just the thing to do!

 

^ That's called cheating =P

I feel like, if you roll then go with the rolls. I usually choose something within 5 rolls. Randomosity of it makes the game feel more fun.

 

18 - 16 - 14 -12 -10 - 8 would require 38 build points, for what it's worth.

 

I actually found it more fun to use the standard (25pts.) point buy. It may seem low, but I think it's adequate. Rolling and re-rolling makes for super powerful characters and also takes a long time to build a character. I've completed the game many times with just point-buy even defeating the Balor on the way.

 

Well, to be hgonest, I think 25 points too low. Living Greyhawk uses 28 points to build characters, and this is the same number used by Atari on the character creation for Dangeons & Dragons Online. And aye, I think that those 3 poits make all diference...

I have played the game with the point buy sistem sometimes, and even finished it once - avoiding the nodes, however.

But, at the moment, the stats I give to my players in paper'n.pen games looks good for me. Im thinking on a couple of 16 and no 18, but I'm sure that the players will riot about...

Anyway. This is not a true RPG. Its a game, to win, not to interact with other people. So, build a machine of eficience looks absolutly acceptable for me. I just don't like to play this way, becose I like hard games. I - and my players as well - look for challenging games in the table or in front of a PC; It's why we play GURPS and Call of Chtullu between D&D campaigns...
So, aye, I understand why to play with demigod characters, I just prefer to just play with a little over-than-normal character group.

 

I don't think that 25 is too low to complete ToEE. It's just that you have to dump a lot of stats. Depending on the character, I may have an 18. I do agree that a 28 point buy would be more fun. A 25 point buy does feel quite limited. I would prefer 28 as well.

 

25 is not too low to complete ToEE. I've done it more than a few times. Hell, if you want to make it somewhat challenging, make it a -30 point buy, bringing all stats down to 3. There's nothing that stats can do to you that crafting cannot fix. Even if you started all characters with all 3's in every stat, the things you can craft will jack them all up to average characters with 11 in each stat. Once you get to that point, the crafted weapons and whatnot will plow through any and all enemies like Obama pisses away money.

 

If all your stats were 3s, your casters wouldn't be able to cast spells (casting requirement int/wis/cha = spell level +10 iirc) and for that matter, don't you have to have a minimum of 11 in the prime requisite ability just to become a class that casts spells in the first place?

Besides, to get to 11s, you'd need items that boost stats +8, but +6 is as high as it goes in TOEE, isn't it?

 

For one item, +6 is as high as it goes. Ioun stones give +2 to every different stat, belts of strength give +4/+6, amulets of wisdom, headbands of intellect, cloaks of charisma, gaultlets of dexterity give +2/+4/+6 and I'm sure there other's I'm missing right off the top of my head. The Robes of Midnight in 5.5 give +2 wisdom. And of course there's the stat adds for level progression. Gaultlets of ogre strength give another +2 to strength.

Now, these bonuses normally are not cumulative after a certain point, I think perhaps after 15 or something. Before that though, especially in the area of all 3's in every stat, they are cumulative. Stats really mean extremely little in the overall scheme of beating the game. It's the crafted items that beat the game. The characters are just there to wear them.