Rolling Vs Point-Buying

[Deuce Traveler]

Rolling for stats as nature intended. It's why God invented dice.

 

[MicoSelva]

Point buy is better most of the time in CRPGs, since it allows you to make a character you want to play, while allowing for better balancing.

The problem is we are talking about D&D here, where point buy makes the game boring. D&D is better with rolled stats, provided you can assign dice results to attributes.

 

[Berekän]

As said by many other people, rolling is better in PnP because you get to actually roleplay your character and the DM reacts to the characters and can make interesting stories revolving flawed characters.

In a CRPG, where all the challenges are already set and most of the reactivity comes from what you can do and not what you cannot do, rolling a suboptimal character is just a minor annoyance and doesn't really make for an interesting experience aside from making the game a bit more difficult. Exceptions to this might be Fallout or Arcanum, where having a low intelligence character gives you a completely different experience to the rest. (Although you don't roll stats in those games)

I don't mind either way, I don't minmax so if I get to buy points I won't really make an optimal build nor I will spend two hours rolling stats for my characters.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

This thread makes me smile. I'm rolling an old school 1st level character from this site: http://barnadesigns.com/BCG/Index.html

Hey, whaddya know. Some decent rolls and a decent character. Looks like I got lucky. I'd probably change him to a magic-user because of that Intelligence and Strength, but otherwise pretty cool. His charisma score is the highest, so I'm thinking that he's a bit of a showman, better at advertising himself than being effective at his work.

Name: Sosigenes Title: Acolyte Class: Cleric Level: 1 Hit Points: 6 Armor Class: 5
Alignment: Lawful XP: 0 Sex: Male Age: 22 Height: 6'3" Weight: 182#
STR: 9 To Hit: 0 To Dam: 0 Open Doors:0
INT: 14 Add Langs: 1,Able to read and write known languages
WIS: 11 Save vs. Magic: 0
DEX: 13 AC Mod: -1,Initiative: 1, Missile Adj: 1
CON: 12 HP Adj: 0
CHA: 15 Reaction Adj: 1, Retainers: 5, Retainer Morale: 8

Saving Throws
Poison or Death Ray Magic Wand Turn To Stone or Paralysis Dragon Breath Spells or Magic Staff
11 12 14 16 15
To-Hit Armor Class
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 -1 -2 -3
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 20 20
Turn Undead
Skeleton Zombie Ghoul Wight Wraith Mummy Spectre Vampire
7 9 11 - - - - -
Other Abilities:
Languages: Common, Lawful, Ogre
Weapon: Light hammer
Armor: Leather, Shield
Other Magic:
Equipment:

• Waterskin
• Small sack
• Rations
• Holy water
• Wooden Holy Symbol

CP SP EP GP PP
0 0 0 80 0
General Appearance: Dandyish
Sanity: Normal
Tendencies: Sober
Personality: Average - Friendly
Disposition: Even Tempered
Nature: Vengeful
Honesty: Very Honorable
Energy: Slothful
Morals: Aesthetic
Intellect: Anti-intellectual
Materialism: Average
Bravery: Cowardly
Thrift: Average
Piety: Reverent
Interests: None

You are the illegitimate and unacknowledged child a Yeoman. You are a credit to the family. You have brown eyes, straight black hair, and a dark complexion.

 

[Daemongar]

Point buy is the further dumbing down of everything, but it's here to stay. While it may be more balances, it also leads to boring, homogeneous watered down characters and encourages metagaming.

1. Can't roll stats because it leads to big variances in difficulty and requires some thought. So we go point buy.
2. Point buy keeps difficulty within a defined range (no scores lower than 8) but still allows people to fuck up. So we eliminate stats.
3. Eliminating stats altogether (Diablo III, Skyrim, Fallout 4, etc.) and turn game into clickfest, FPS, or interactive movie.
4. Elder Scrolls VI will find a way to dumb this all down even further

 

[Alex]

Rolling works in pen and paper, where your group will slap you if you try to reroll and the DM can adjust difficulty to account for shitty characters. On the computer, point buy usually delivers a more interesting experience.

This exactly. PnP is self-correcting with any DM worth their salt. If someone somehow becomes an all-18 wunderkind the DM merely needs to give them slightly worse loot, make them use weapons that they aren't optimally specced for, and so on. (snip...)

This is the worst way to deal with this kind of situation, in my opinion. You just threw away any notion of verisimilitude just to spite a player that did something you didn't like. Either be upfront about it and don't allow rerolling, or allow it for all it is worth.

 

[Shadowfang]

Point buy unless i am going for an exotic handicapped party.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I think this Roqua quote goes quite well in this thread...

I bought IWD enhanced edition, and I was trying to keep it under 2 hours so I could get a refund for this child’s game atrocity. But, I barley went over and now I am out 20 bucks on this garbage.

I made a party of 3 HO fighters (no kits), 1 HO swashbuckler, 1HO cleric, and a human dragonsomething sorcerer (spell picks were identify and magic missles). I would have made a dwarf defender and cavalier but rerolling to get 18/00 was taking too long. I do not have an expert knowledge of this system and have never seen most of these classes (or kits as they call them). I quickly made my decisions based on not being a fucking idiot. Not being a fucking idiot isn’t expert knowledge.

I quickly did the town quests and my rogue gained a level in the town, before going to the orc cave for the supplies. My cleric dinged turning the orc supply quest in. My fighters dinged after turning the order for supplies in I think.

I only cast 1 spell, an identify spell, on a pair of crappy boots that I forget what they did but it was crap in the orc cave. I rested at the inn before going on the caravan quest. I did not take any potions.

I was able to kill all the bad guys in town, and all the bad guys in the cave without ever healing, and not reloading ever. I never positioned any character. My “strategy” was to click on a bad guy and watch. I sometimes had to highlight just my sorcerer since he had a tendency to stand there after the initial target died and I would have to prompt him to use his sling against other bad guys.

After the orc cave my hps were full for one of my fighters, my cleric, and my sorcerer. My rogue had 9/16, one fighter had 7/15, and the other 11/15.

I did not try. I did not have to think. I did not have to position or even reload ever. I couldn’t even build the party I wanted and I thought would be strongest due to time constraints and the time it takes to get an 18/00.

The second area was even easier. I had full HPs after a bunch of bunches of bad guys when I had to quit because of the two hours. I went over by like two minutes, maybe three and those cocksuckers are making me keep this piece of shit children’s game for idiots. That’s fine, I’ll just get all my games from G2A so those bitches get less of my money, or Gog and origins so they get none. I can’t believe I am out 20 bucks on this atrocity.

Before you reply and say I have to play for 5 or 10 or 20 hours before I hit an enemy that requires me to think, fuck you. I don’t want to be bored out of my mind for 5, 10, or 20 hours.

Conclusion: I am not a moron, you are. You are extremely fucking stupid if you think the combat in this game requires interaction or is the least bit difficult. I guess we can consider it difficult compared to such challenging daily tasks you must struggle through such as looking in the mirror and putting clothes on, but for non-retards it is extremely, extremely devoid of challenge. Now I’m out 20 dollars because you are stupid. Thanks buddy.

 

[laclongquan]

God forbid someone badmouth rolling in front of pen and paper players. God forbid~

 

[Ulminati]

To be fair, the last time I rolled in pen&paper was around 2010 or so. Nothing against rolling, but for better or worse the people I play with prefer point buy systems. I like rolling, but I don't feel strongly enough about it to make it an issue.

 

[Lhynn]

Sorry Lhynn. NPCs are cheating. Unless you edit them to have the same stat array I guess.

No it isnt you delusional cuck, they are there for a reason. Its a resource the game offers you.

Either way, the only way you're getting that cats grace is through consumables, which will eat further into your already stained budget since the caster loot will be useless to you and your will be short on fighter loot.

Good thing then, that a team of fighters doesnt really have a "fighter loot" problem, as gear is easily interchangeable and you can modify what they carry to fit your needs.

On top of that, your hit points will be mediocre at best

The total HP of the party is much higher than with a party with mixed classes.

your saves will be crap and your attack bonus nonexistent.

Attack bonus isnt needed as a warrior past a certain level. AC in general remains static, BAB eventually outgrows it, usually by the middle levels.

Face it, you will be chainwiping in the moathouse

Doubtful, fighers are well ahead of most other classes at level 1 beause of their superior AC/HP/BAB. Very few things can survive a volley of 6 dudes with crossbows at that level.

 

[Ulminati]

'k. Time for you to make us a let's play of ToEE with the stat array and prove you're not made of hot air.

 

[deuxhero]

Rolling is a stupid idea that only sticks around out of misguided nastolgia. It makes the balance all over the place, forces char gen to eat at session time (instead of allowing someone to gen characters before playing), and most importantly stops you from playing a character you'd like to play simply because the cheap, and only vaguely cubical plastic die that don't actually provide anything near a perfect mix of numbers rolled differently

 

[nikolokolus]

Rolling is a stupid idea that only sticks around out of misguided nastolgia. It makes the balance all over the place, forces char gen to eat at session time (instead of allowing someone to gen characters before playing), and most importantly stops you from playing a character you'd like to play simply because the cheap, and only vaguely cubical plastic die that don't actually provide anything near a perfect mix of numbers rolled differently

Balance can be an issue if the game you are playing has a wide array of pluses and minuses associated with ability scores, but if we are talking about pre-WotC Dungeons & Dragons (for example) it really doesn't affect "balance" as much as you claim. As for chargen "eating up session time" that's always been part of the fun with the people I game with -- "what kind of ragtag collection of misfits are were going to end up with this time?" As for your last point, my most memorable character to this day was an AD&D magic-user with 10 intelligence and 16 strength generated using 3d6 in order. Rolling to see if he was ever going to be able to learn a spell from found scrolls was always an adventure and there's no way I would have created such a character if I was forced to pick from a pregenerated array or point-buy.

 

[Ulminati]

As for your last point, my most memorable character to this day was an AD&D magic-user with 10 intelligence and 16 strength

IT WAS YOU!

YOU'RE THE ONE WHO INSPIRED JOSH SAWYER TO MAKE MUSCLE WIZARDS IN POE!

 

[Lhynn]

Point buying is boring, you end up with a world were every character feels the fucking same, because no one is going to sabotage himself just to larp some ineffective character. But if luck has a hand on it, well, thats were things get interesting. Even if you reroll for optimal stat distribution, you will have to make a compromise, and an interesting character will be born. Incidentally those rolls may even define the class you will be playing if you dont get to pick the order, which is also something really really cool.

You go inthere meaning to play a wizard but your stat array ends up being amazing for a druid, and that right there can make for some memorable moments.

 

[Average Manatee]

Point buying is boring, you end up with a world were every character feels the fucking same, because no one is going to sabotage himself just to larp some ineffective character.

That's exactly why rolling is boring in video games. No one is going to sabotage himself just to larp some ineffective character, reroll till you get something decent.

 

[Lhynn]

That's exactly why rolling is boring in video games. No one is going to sabotage himself just to larp some ineffective character, reroll till you get something decent.

Which should take at most 1 minute. Also its all about execution.

 

[Daemongar]

To be honest, I did like MM6-MM8's characters start with base initial stats for your class, and you get points to distribute for the entire party. That was a point buy system I thought was reasonable.

 

[TigerKnee]

Welcome to MMO-style super-equipment with abysmally low drop rates as loot from big monsters that themselves have low spawn rates.

Funny, I don't think MMOs do that much anymore nowadays - too much BALANCE going on.

 

[Mastermind]

3. Eliminating stats altogether (Diablo III, Skyrim, Fallout 4, etc.) and turn game into clickfest, FPS, or interactive movie.

"Eliminating stats" *gives examples of 3 games with stats*

 

[DraQ]

The problem is we are talking about D&D here, where point buy makes the game boring. D&D is better with rolled stats, provided you can assign dice results to attributes.

Thread title doesn't specify D&D.

3. Eliminating stats altogether (...) Skyrim, Fallout 4

On a technicality:
Skills ARE stats and last time I checked (I didn't check very thoroughly) FO4 seems to still have some variant of SPECIAL.

Rolling is a stupid idea that only sticks around out of misguided nastolgia (...) and most importantly stops you from playing a character you'd like to play

Point buying is boring, you end up with a world were every character feels the fucking same, because no one is going to sabotage himself just to larp some ineffective character.

This.

While I've seen PB that allowed non-minmaxed builds to thrive and play effectively yet differently from minmaxed ones - Wizardry 8 for example, you still didn't have much reason, to, for example, pump mage's strength.
OTOH with rolls you can end up with a wizard that apart from being intelligent just happens to also be strong, but clumsy, and such character will (or should) play differently than one that is weak, but nimble, or one that is a complete wimp physically, but charismatic, yet may not necessarily provide enough incentive to put points into those attributes manually or the incentives may be imbalanced enough to discourage particular builds (see PS fucking T for a pretty nice case study).

simply because the cheap, and only vaguely cubical plastic die that don't actually provide anything near a perfect mix of numbers rolled differently

Get good ones or write a program that produces good rolls distribution.

Also, cRPG context. It's GRPGD, not Gazebo.

It makes the balance all over the place

Not everyone is a

who faps to holy balance.

Besides, accounting for uncertain PC power levels forces designer to produce more robust and interesting challenges than ones based on fine-tuning attrition.
Of course most devs are awful hacks, so they don't anyway, but as a rule of a thumb design choices that make balancing easier make the game less of an RPG
(on the extreme end you can drop stats altogether and turn the entire playthrough into cutscene punctuated corridor while you're at that which makes the game: trivial to balance, suck, not an RPG).

Point buying is boring, you end up with a world were every character feels the fucking same, because no one is going to sabotage himself just to larp some ineffective character.

That's exactly why rolling is boring in video games. No one is going to sabotage himself just to larp some ineffective character, reroll till you get something decent.

If the game doesn't do something stupid, like letting you reassign individual points freely, rerolling can only help you so much with any realistic time investment. Sure, you can quite easily reroll character with max or close to max primary stat for the class you're planning, but they will have quirks that don't have much impact on overall archetype, but would have been ironed out as waste of extra points or deficiencies in secondary stats in point-buy.

 

[janior]

Rolling can be tedious... but that feeling when you get highest possible score .

 

[boobio]

Point buying. Rolling is shit in pen and paper, let alone digital games.

Thoughts persianronin ??

OMG NECRO!!!!! OMG NECRO!!!!! OMG NECRO!!!!!OMG NECRO!!!!!
This Is What will happen to you!!!:

also roll; pb is boring.

 

[Manmower]

Rolling for stats as nature intended. It's why God invented dice.

while allowing for better balancing.

Josh pls go.

Which should take at most 1 minute. Also its all about execution.

Your retardation borders on the infinite. Please excise your shriveled nuts, and spare humanity the torment of suffering the burden of your genetic material.