The Gaming Den

I've heard of a few. Here are the ones that I know of which interest me. I'd appreciate any commentary for/against any of them, or even an awesome one you've heard of.

1. 32 point-buy
2. 4d6 (drop lowest) six times, arrange
3. One at 18, one at 8, best four 4d6 (drop lowest) rolls out of six, arrange
4. 2d6+6 six times, arrange
5. 4d6 (drop lowest), IN ORDER, reroll one, one swap allowed

There's also the old number burn that some old dms still use.

Take two from one stat to add one to another.

Basically lets you make charisma even more of a dump stat if you really want to. :-P

I stopped the rolling of stats when I got my group to play our, first Tome characters.

We used to use all sorts of crazy systems, most of them were really dumb really.

It was seriously more fair to say: "80-pt free buy" than to use some of the systems that we used.

We used the elite array instead for the Tome game.

We sort of ganked it and as soon as the party could beat up Ifreeti or clever enough to make business deals with Noble Djinni they'd get Wish encomy access (and +5 to all stats, but a 13 is all that you'll get to your oringal score of 8).

Now, I'm trying to only allow Wish access to 11th lvl characters only. So, elite array for longer into the game.

We have rolled 24 dice, reroll ones, and then put the top 18 into sets of 3 as you wish. Pretty much guarantees you'll have one or 2 good stats and you can often get away with not having anything that is to much of a dump stat.

On a related but broader subject:

The benefit of point-buy, or other deliberate-build systems, is that they let you build a character to a concept. This lets you actually start chargen by saying 'I want to play a Paladin,' which was a ridiculous statement back in AD&D. It also gives players a feeling of greater control and general authorship.

The benefit of random-build systems is that they can create unexpected things, which are often amusing, e.g. TMNT's time-travelling kung-fu brontosaurus man. It also helps to create a feeling of not being in control, which is helpful for games like Call of Cthulhu or Warhammer Fantasy, where you are supposed to be at the mercy of an arbitrary and uncaring universe.

I actually like a system which has some combination of the two, allowing control but denying complete determinism. AEG's games, which are mostly point-buy, but with a few random bits is a good setup. Amber's auction system also has some appeal in that regard, though in a very different way.

I always just say "let stats be as you need them to be" because that way we get things like a fighter who doesn't have a charisma of 8; something that you don't really get very often with the listed methods. I hate the idea of a dump stat.

I played in a game with randomly rolled ability scores where I was a Wizard with 80-some ability points, and another player was a Wizard with 60-some ability points. After that I am a firm proponent of point buy.

30 point buy is closest to the Phb standard random ability score generating method. 25 points is not representative of the standard.

My personal preference is 75 point for point. If you are putting more ability points in one score over another, the second score will be lower. There is no need for the overcharging in standard point buy. That just exacerbates point buy problems like the low Cha Fighter, etc.

SphereOfFeetMan wrote:There is no need for the overcharging in standard point buy. That just exacerbates point buy problems like the low Cha Fighter, etc.

I agree. The scaling cost is meant to represent the curve of the dice results, and should generally be discarded, particularly since the costs to raise stats in play are flat.

I've always thought about using point buy, but every time I mention it, my players complain because they like rolling dice, so they roll dice. I don't much care what method they use, to the point where I've said numerous times that it doesn't matter if they pull six numbers from 3-18 out of the air. Even with that proviso, ability scores are always middling to high, because I use the average of all their scores -1 for most monsters/NPCs, and average or average +1 for more distinguished NPCs and whatnot.

One of my DM's had what he called the Champion Array--- 18 16 14 12 10 8. Of course, it won't be too affected if you make it 18 16 14 12 10 10.

I'm fond of everyone at the table rolling a stat array, and then everyone at the table being allowed to use th stat array rolled up by any of the players. That works out pretty well.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:I'm fond of everyone at the table rolling a stat array, and then everyone at the table being allowed to use th stat array rolled up by any of the players. That works out pretty well.

-Username17

I like that one. I'll have to remember that.

FrankTrollman wrote:I'm fond of everyone at the table rolling a stat array, and then everyone at the table being allowed to use th stat array rolled up by any of the players. That works out pretty well.

-Username17

That's pretty much what I did for my current game.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:

SphereOfFeetMan wrote:There is no need for the overcharging in standard point buy. That just exacerbates point buy problems like the low Cha Fighter, etc.

I agree. The scaling cost is meant to represent the curve of the dice results, and should generally be discarded, particularly since the costs to raise stats in play are flat.

Seconded. Or is that thirded? Point-buy costs should only reflect the benefit of the next highest ability score, not the distribution curve of an RNG.

I like the bribery array: everyone has 8 8 8 8 8 8, but bribing me can boost it into crazy-town.

Actually, I never used that. I did accept bribes (I'd just flown interstate to see them all, I'd be tired, in short I was very receptive to a cold drink and a packet of crisps. I didn't accept monetary bribes) for things like granting bonus feats and stuff, but the point-buy was usually one of the following:

1. 36, which is generally "I have an 18 in my favourite stat!" plus rounding the others out without having to have a complete dump stat.

2. Whatever. Make some numbers up. Before racial modifiers, these numbers should be between 3 and 18. I seriously don't care.

Always worked well.

One player had the view of "Give me 36 pb or give me death!", one DM loved "5drop2, reroll any score less than 10, and you have to have at least one 18", and another thought "I'll roll 5drop2, everyone uses the same rolled numbers but puts them wherever, and all NPCs use the same array" was good.

So far there has not been some method of asking the Dark Gods for their insight as to what the numbers should be, but I imagine it's only a matter of time.

I remember a former player asking if we could use 96 point-buy, with the standard costs extrapolated for stats beyond 18

There was this one-shot I was in where the DM had us use an array of 18, 18, 16, 16, 14, 14

Then there are the current set of DMs who decided that the point-buy design of 3.P is an well-thought plan where 18 should be special amongst players.

I have wondered whether or not it would be possible to take inspiration from Amber's stat auction system, but I'm not real certain if it can see a proper translation into D&D.

I generally let my players individually choose between roll 2d6+7 six times and arrange, roll 4d6 six times and arrange, and 36 point buy. Same average value, but the more randomness and risk of low scores you allow the higher the possible reward.

I've also just went ahead and let them pick their scores; fortunately no one took advantage of that freedom.

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:Point-buy costs should only reflect the benefit of the next highest ability score, not the distribution curve of an RNG.

There's nothing inherently wrong with scaling costs for flat benefits; but there is something inherently wrong with switching between flat and scaling costs between chargen and during play. That's one of the most obviously problematic things in all the WW games, for instance.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:The scaling cost is meant to represent the curve of the dice results, and should generally be discarded, particularly since the costs to raise stats in play are flat.

[4e] I think the scaling cost is meant to represent that two points in your sixth stat are worth much less than two points in your primary stat. Without scaling costs, you have to put an 18 into your primary stat if you don't want a suboptimal character. With scaling costs, it will sometimes be worth putting a 16 into the primary stat so you can have higher values in your second and third stat.

The costs to raise stats in play are flat, and this creates the bad situation where every time someone gets a stat increase they have to increase their primary stat. This is dumb, and there's no reason to spread that dumbness into stat generation.

MartinHarper wrote:The costs to raise stats in play are flat, and this creates the bad situation where every time someone gets a stat increase they have to increase their primary stat. This is dumb, and there's no reason to spread that dumbness into stat generation.

Yes, but that's not because of how raising stats is costed, it's because 4e operates on the Red Queen Principle in the first place. How people are forced to arrange their stats to stay competitive is because of much deeper design problems than simple costing.

I mean, if you wanted, you could have stat costs scale both during chargen and during level-ups and that would be equally coherent. It would just super-encourage people to have an 18 early on so as to not have to sink 4 increases into a 17 before any headway was made. That only strikes me as workable if you handed out a number of stat increase points larger than 1 when people got them.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have said that changing the cost structure between chargen and xp is inherently wrong. It's not, it just creates specific reward structures. Costs in WW games are flat at chargen and scaled afterwards, and this encourages starting characters to have a few very high numbers, and to pick up a large number of small numbers in play. Doing it the other way around would encourage broad competence at the start and easy specialization later. Neither of those is actually a bad model, depending on what you're trying to simulate. The WW model would be useful for niche-protection in a skill-based game, for example.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:It would just super-encourage people to have an 18 early on so as to not have to sink 4 increases into a 17 before any headway was made.

I was thinking of a system where you can choose one of two options:
a) increase any stat by one point.
b) increase four stats by one point, but not your highest stat. (If you have two or more stats that are equal highest, you can increase all but one of them).

(a) gives you better offence, (b) gives you better skills and defence. This would happen roughly every even level.

MartinHarper wrote:I was thinking of a system where you can choose one of two options:
a) increase any stat by one point.
b) increase four stats by one point, but not your highest stat. (If you have two or more stats that are equal highest, you can increase all but one of them).

(a) gives you better offence, (b) gives you better skills and defence. This would happen roughly every even level.

This to me would seem to encourage people starting with a single very high attribute, and then rapidly improving every other attribute to that level, then all stats start improving slowly and roughly evenly.

Or, If it's used in 4e, starting with a single very high attribute, a second moderately high attribute, and some middling stats. Then the moderate attribute rapidly becomes equal to the very high attribute, and those two attributes start improving slowly and roughly evenly, because maxing 2 stats is still the best strategy.

In specifics, I was talking 4e, though the principle works for other games. It's just a way of scaling attribute prices.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:... starting with a single very high attribute, a second moderately high attribute, and some middling stats. Then the moderate attribute rapidly becomes equal to the very high attribute, and those two attributes start improving slowly and roughly evenly, because maxing 2 stats is still the best strategy.

So, you'd start with 18, 14, 10, 10, 10, 9, and pick option (b) all the way? Here's a comparison of the two options:

level 8:
option (a): 22, 14, 10, 10, 10, 9.
option (b): 18, 18, 14, 14, 14, 9.

Level 16:
option (a): 26, 14, 10, 10, 10, 9.
option (b): 20, 20, 18, 18, 18, 9.

Level 24:
option (a): 30, 14, 10, 10, 10, 9
option (b): 23, 23, 22, 22, 22, 9.

Option (a) has better attacks; option (b) has better defences, skills, and class features, and can choose powers more freely. So I think you're right, (b) is better. I should have picked a 2:1 or 3:1 trade-off.

Oh, I didn't quite get that b was 'increase 4 stats each by 1 point,' not '4 stat increase points, the highest one can't go up.'

That's much less easy for me to analyze immediately.