Point Buy vs. Rolling Stats

[Acadiantri]

With point buy, my characters will likely have 16s in their two main stat and a 14 in a third. With repeated rolling, I can easily and have those stats be two 18s and a 16 (or I can just set all my stats to 20, yes I know). My questions how much stronger is a party with characters with 18/18/16 in their three main stats than a party with characters with 16/16/14? +1 on to hit and damage or AC looks 5% better, but my guess is that the rolled party will be 10-20% stronger in practice from hitting more often, doing more damage, getting hit less often, and having more hps combined. Thoughts?

[Grumpy Old Dude]

I dont do the point buy. Thats a great way to get n "avg" Joe party, but "avg Joes" dont go adventuring, do they?

[Grumpy Old Dude]

the way it is done on tabletop, is entirely up to your DM. I have seen DMs assign a 12 to each stat and let you roll 2D6 discarding the low as an add to each 12.

house rules on character creation, are as robust as house rules on any other aspect of the game.

[DiceWrangler]

Solasta is a single-player game so you can keep rolling until you get high-enough stats or just use a hex editor to set them to the value you want. Personally, in games that I DM or where it is an option, I always use Point Buy.

[Silverquick]

Well to be honest

You really don't have to roll forever on the Solasta interface either. Most often the minute I turn the page to the stats, the dice rolls are already good enough to use. Its pretty rare to even need to re-roll anything for me.

EDIT: Like an an example, the last time I rolled one,
The stats ended up like this...
16, 15, 15, 14, 12, 11.
With Bonus abilities from race you're looking at a very usable character anyway.

That's a 18, 16, 15, 14, 12, 11 after stats area applied.

[Grumpy Old Dude]

nor do you need a hex editor. Just go to the point buy screen, check the 'free allocation' in the middle, and make the nrs all 19 if thats what you want.

[Dislexeeya]

Originally posted by Acadiantri:

My questions how much stronger is a party with characters with 18/18/16 in their three main stats than a party with characters with 16/16/14? +1 on to hit and damage or AC looks 5% better but my guess is that the rolled party will be 10-20% stronger in practice...

Yup, your math and assumption is pretty correct. While it's technically a difference of 5%, it feels like 10-20%.

The biggest difference, however, isn't the increased chance to hit and so-fourth. It's opportunity cost. Do I pump my stats up to 20 with my ASIs, or do I pick up a feat? Due to Solasta's level cap of 10; when starting with 18 you have enough room to pick up a feat and pump it to 20, while when using point-buy you'll have to use both ASIs to get to 20. ASI vs. feat becomes a more difficult decision with point-buy.

[Blackmage]

D&D 5e was designed with smaller numbers in mind. Smaller player counts, smaller combat encounters, etc, to keep even weaker things relevant. This is why a level 1 adventurer *could* save against a lvl 20 Wizard with a spell save DC of 21, however improbable it might be.

So, how significant is the difference between a 16 and a 20? Not much, but a whole lot simultaneously. I know that's a contradiction and it's very weird. As some of the guys have mathed out already, while it's mechanically a very small change, it feels like it's A TON bigger than that.
I think this is because when the difference between something strong and something weak is measured in smaller/larger intervals, it changes how much each interval matters, even if it's functionally only a difference of 1.
Take a T-Rex for example, which has a Strength of 25 (+7), and compare that to a commoner, who will have straight stats of 10 (+0). A Half-Orc Fighter can easily get their Strength score up to 18-20. They're basically King Kong vs Godzilla.
In contrast, the T-Rex has a Strength score of 28 in 3e/3.5e, where larger numbers and power gaming were a lot more common, and you could increase ability scores beyond 20 naturally, and you could even have a +11 in a skill at level 1. So that epic battle of kaiju devolves into something more like Iron Man vs The Hulk. While still impressive, the scale is different, thus causing the value between numbers to changed dramatically.

[wizard1200]

Originally posted by Grumpy Old Dude:

I dont do the point buy. Thats a great way to get n "avg" Joe party, but "avg Joes" dont go adventuring, do they?

I would hardly call a character with an ability score of 15 (without modifiers) an average Joe, because the maximum natural ability score for player characters is 20. It seems more like a way to justify the behavior to roll the ability scores as often as you like ...

Originally posted by DiceWrangler:

Solasta is a single-player game so you can keep rolling until you get high-enough stats or just use a hex editor to set them to the value you want. Personally, in games that I DM or where it is an option, I always use Point Buy.

Exactly.

[Cosmo 🐲]

Originally posted by Grumpy Old Dude:

the way it is done on tabletop, is entirely up to your DM. I have seen DMs assign a 12 to each stat and let you roll 2D6 discarding the low as an add to each 12.

house rules on character creation, are as robust as house rules on any other aspect of the game.

^This
A always let my party roll 4d6 and remove the worst dice, if the roll is completely trash i will let them reroll

[psychotron666]

In solasta you can set your stats. Just go to point buy and there's an option to edit, where you can freely edit them all and make them all 20 if you really wanted.

Ideally I like having 2 attributes at 18 and one at 16, the rest don't matter.

When I DM, I let the players roll like normal and reroll if they want, but they are allowed to automatically set one stat to 18, but if they do that they have to set another to 8.

One of my other players had a group where they roll like normal, but if they wanna reroll, they minus a d6 from one attribute roll, and minus another one for every reroll. That's pretty interesting.

[lastrati]

I like to roll til I get an awesome array in solo games like this. 18 on the main stat, 16+ on secondary, 14+ on con.

Tabletop, point buy is fine. It prevents situations where Rogue has 18 dex, Bard 18 dex, 18 cha, wizard has 18 str, 18 int, 5 con, and cleric starts Wis 12.

Tabletop die roll is fun too. Run with what you roll is fine. For a greater challenge, what you got and that order is fun too! Sometimes creates the situation I had above.

But it always baffled me in tabletop how I was the only player who ever rolled less than 18 on their main stat😅😉

1st AD&D Unearthed Arcana had six other die rolling conventions. One was like 12d6 drop the lowest 9 on your main stat, and the worst stat, in that system, was a straight 3d6 for magic-user's strength. It was ridiculous!😅

Solasta is a solo game. Play how you want.

[bobo.94]

Rolling stats numerous times is basically a cheat

[lastrati]

Originally posted by bobo.94:

Rolling stats numerous times is basically a cheat

So is point buy, and average hit points per level...to thosevof us who cut our teeth on 3d6, in order, roll for hp each level and try not to get "1" three levels in a row.

[lastrati]

You also don't get stuck with a 5 Con.

It's just a different point of view from a differentvframe of reference.

[DiceWrangler]

Originally posted by lastrati:

So is point buy, and average hit points per level...to thosevof us who cut our teeth on 3d6, in order, roll for hp each level and try not to get "1" three levels in a row.

Fortunately, the days of a 1st level, 3 hit point Wizard dying to a single bite from an angry alley cat and Wizards resorting to throwing darts or shooting Light Crossbows instead of using Cantrips are over.

Point Buy was designed for organized play where characters were built at-home then played at a convention or game store with a DM that does not know the players. Before Point Buy, how many times do you think convention DMs heard "But I rolled an 18/00 Strength, I swear!" /eyeroll