Is the game balanced around point buy?

[Bunston]

If I roll for stats, will I make the game too easy by re-rolling for better scores? Rolling lets you choose sub-optimal race/class combos and still have 16's in your primary stats, but I'm worried I'm going to trivialize the game if my base stats are too high.

[DiceWrangler]

Yes, point buy is the recommended method for the reason you just mentioned: game balance. That said, an extra +1 or +2 in something is not going to break the game so, unless you are in a tournament or organized play, do what you want. Note that, on a d20, a +2 is just +10%

[Dallas S]

You can even free edit and set all your attributes to 20, but that definitely makes the game easier

[mk11]

If you want you can use a custom difficulty setting to offset the extra bonus of repeated rolling.

[LJ-the-brave]

You know, you will get an achievement if you keep rolling. Just saying ;)

[Grumpy Old Dude]

Originally posted by Bunston:

If I roll for stats, will I make the game too easy by re-rolling for better scores? Rolling lets you choose sub-optimal race/class combos and still have 16's in your primary stats, but I'm worried I'm going to trivialize the game if my base stats are too high.

so go FREE EDIT and set every stat to 18, letting racial modifiers take it from there.

Then when you 1st start the game, click SETTINGS, under DIFFICULTY, select CUSTOM...now, give enemies 100% extra hit points, give them +3 on all attack rolls and Saving Throws, give yourself a -1 to everything to offset the +'s from the stats, play with it. You wont feel like you trivialized anything.

[Out]

I'm gonna go against the flow here and provide my two cents on the topic.

Is the game balanced around point buy?
Yes, but so is authentic tabletop D&D. You can roll for stats, sure, but it's a very common accepted houserule that:

- OK, roll for stats.. If you don't like it, either go for the point buy pattern or reroll, but keep it whatever the results are. Rolling for stats is supposed to bring this randomness to a character's traits to enrich the roleplay, not to powerplay (at least on a regular tabletop game)

To each their own, but I think this is WAY EASIER and WAY MORE EFFECTIVE than fiddling with D&D 5e standard rules.

What I also do is randomly assign a race for a character made for a campaign, roll for stats like I said, and activate Iron Man mode. I think it's the closest thing you can have for an authentic tabletop challenge.

Most DMs wouldn't let you roll stats more than once anyway, so go for that.

This is just a recommendation, mind you. Some people like big numbers cos that's how they roll, but in the end, you have to increase the monster's stats and bonuses to compensate, so yeah, in my opinion, not worth it.

[DrLoboto]

Originally posted by Out:

Rolling for stats is supposed to bring this randomness to a character's traits to enrich the roleplay, not to powerplay (at least on a regular tabletop game)

True, but then again, you can't really roleplay that much in videogames, and in most cases there is no DM and no group with which you can turn weak stats into creative storytelling. In videogames, it's much more likely to result in frustrating disadvantages during combat for no other reason than RNG. You will still miss a lot in Solasta, even with slightly better than average stats, and unless your idea of fun and a good challenge is dealing with your party missing even more, I'd say there's nothing wrong with aiming for high stats in your prime attribute at least. I usually roll until I get 18 in one, 16 in a second and at least 10 in most other stats, and I didn't feel like it ruined the game balance.

[Acadiantri]

Play how you like. Both the main campaign and LV are relatively easy (except for occasional random encounter). As Grumpy says, do what you want on stats and then adjust the difficulty until it feels fun.

[Dallas S]

Originally posted by Out:

I'm gonna go against the flow here and provide my two cents on the topic.

Is the game balanced around point buy?
Yes, but so is authentic tabletop D&D. You can roll for stats, sure, but it's a very common accepted houserule that:

- OK, roll for stats.. If you don't like it, either go for the point buy pattern or reroll, but keep it whatever the results are. Rolling for stats is supposed to bring this randomness to a character's traits to enrich the roleplay, not to powerplay (at least on a regular tabletop game)

To each their own, but I think this is WAY EASIER and WAY MORE EFFECTIVE than fiddling with D&D 5e standard rules.

What I also do is randomly assign a race for a character made for a campaign, roll for stats like I said, and activate Iron Man mode. I think it's the closest thing you can have for an authentic tabletop challenge.

Most DMs wouldn't let you roll stats more than once anyway, so go for that.

This is just a recommendation, mind you. Some people like big numbers cos that's how they roll, but in the end, you have to increase the monster's stats and bonuses to compensate, so yeah, in my opinion, not worth it.

My DM house rule is I let you reroll unlimited times, however with each reroll you take 1d6 away from any attribute roll. As you reroll more, your chances of high stats drops with every reroll as you stack the subtractions. Reroll enough times and you got only 1d6 roll on an attribute lol.

[Perception312]

Keep in mind that the game gives you many stat-fixing items, tomes, feats that give +1 in a score with another benefit, and an opportunity to improve a score by 2 every four levels. Even if you roll stats (which unbalances things a bit and is tedious), races without Darkvision will be suboptimal in some situations, so I wouldn't roll stats to solve race imbalance.

[Rhalius]

Because humans get nothing in this game due to variant human missing, I tend to give my humans extra ability points instead beyond the little +1 in everything which is kind of meaningless in this game.
I let them start off with two stats in 20 instead with the rest in the 10-14 range.

It's the only thing we can give humans in this game. We seriously need either the variant human or something similar with a different name. Like maybe not a free feat, but some flexible choice of benefit.

Like, the human either gets two cantrips, a fighting style or profficiency or other stuff like that, just something useful for different roles.

[Grumpy Old Dude]

Originally posted by Rhalius:

Because humans get nothing in this game due to variant human missing, I tend to give my humans extra ability points instead beyond the little +1 in everything which is kind of meaningless in this game.
I let them start off with two stats in 20 instead with the rest in the 10-14 range.

It's the only thing we can give humans in this game. We seriously need either the variant human or something similar with a different name. Like maybe not a free feat, but some flexible choice of benefit.

Like, the human either gets two cantrips, a fighting style or profficiency or other stuff like that, just something useful for different roles.

Get the Community Expansion 2 Mod at Nexus Mods. You GET the Variant Human, and the you can Multi-class, and you can....

https://www.nexusmods.com/solastacrownofthemagister/mods/212

[Soteria]

Any reason that mod isn't in the workshop? I keep on hearing about it and looked but couldn't find it.

[Grumpy Old Dude]

Originally posted by Soteria:

Any reason that mod isn't in the workshop? I keep on hearing about it and looked but couldn't find it.

yeah, the workshop is ONLY available to steam users, not GOG. Nexus mods, can serve any source for the game. It is preferred. I frequently ask people to make less use of the workshop, and greater use of Nexus.

[Rhalius]

Eh, on steam I only use workshop mods. And I haven't felt any need to add mods to this game.