Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Point buy v. Rolling

I would think it would be the other way around. Rolling for easy mode and point buy for everything else since you know people will roll until they get high stats (easy mode)

Should have point buy and rolling for all difficulties, makes everyone happy.

I used to roll a lot in the old BG series. I got pretty good at tapping the "Roll Again" button quickly, but then I became too good ....

78, 82, 73, 77, 81, 76, 76, 82, 79, 91, 80, oh @#%!

Personally I'd like to get an option to roll. I might not use it but I think it should be an option that should be available. Denying this option for the sake of "balance" would be a mistake IMO because:

1) If people want inflate stats, they'll find a way to do it anyway (console, mods)

2) It assumes 5e system is somehow super balanced with rolled stats - let's be honest, 5e is far from balanced. And it doesn't need to be


Having a rolled system will justify letting Larian give companions varied stats (instead of based off of a point buy), which I think gives the characters more personality. This was one feature I always loved about the BG games. Some companions are brutally sub-optimized but that's part of their charm.

This again?
One of the directors already said in an interview back in March that there will be the option to roll stats in the full release.

If you actually read the topic then you would know that this thread was asking which character creation system prefer to use, not asking whether rolling would be in the game. The topic takes for granted that rolling will be an option because I had also read that aforementioned interview.

I always enter character creation with a clear concept in mind. I do not need the dice to inform my character idea, nor would I want to depend on their mercy to enable that concept mechanically.

On the DM side, I once told my players that the only way they would get to use rolled stats is if they rolled a single array of 6 stats and then every party member would use that same array (distributing the individual stats as desired).

I have a mod that adds an in game autoroller to IWD's U.I. It just keeps rolling while saving the highest value. (totally have no idea where I got the mod though as I've been trying to find it again but can only find an external auto roller) The actual easiest way to do it without mods is to have cheats on and just press CTRL+8 to give you all 18's and then just lower the points to what you want for the character. The game lets you continue even if you have left over points. Only bad thing about that is the perfect 18/00 Strength it gives you as there's no way to randomize the d100 roll.

Cool! I have the Shadow Keeper editor and that has a random stat score generator as well. In that case, I think it is a true 3d6 per stat, and within a few rolls you can get a decent result much more quickly than with the old BioWare in-game special algorithm. I kind of like the old "Method IV" rolling procedure from the Dungeon Master's Guide: "3d6 are rolled sufficient times to generate the 6 ability scores, in order, for 12 characters, The player then selects the single set of scores which he or she finds most desirable and these scores are noted on the character record sheet." That is kind of a group-roll thing, and I'd be much less likely to hit the re-roll button too soon.

Although I prefer a point-buy system or standard array in 5e, especially for all-around game balance,
it is a bit too severe in 5e core.

Many characters end up with maximum 15 or 16. Even with a more flexible racial exceptions, as made official in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, your Paladin Dwarf would have maximum 16 Charisma or your Dwarf Wizard maximum 16 Intelligence. And 16 is already much better than the official rules of point-buy and races a few weeks ago. :P

Games that allow both point-buy or rolls freely, like in Solasta, means that some players roll with 18s while others play a very moderate array of about 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.

CONCLUSION / SUGGESTION : a standard point-buy for all players, which creates a more comparable playing field, BUT a bit more generous or epic than the 5e standard.
( something along the lines, more or less, of 16 15 14 13 12 11 before any racial bonuses. Which is 13 more buy-points than the 27 usual. )

so much rolling in BG - I would roll for hours to get in the mid 90's, my opinion, point buy - there is already enough in the game to exploit you do not need to rig your stats.

'Tis true that the new 5E rules are very generous in granting ability score increases. Is it something like 10 points by 19th level? That is a lot! It makes me wonder, what if we do the random roll but can't actually see our specific scores, just a simple adjectival rating like "above average"? How would that feel, when we've all been so conditioned to seeing numbers? I'll have to type that into an Excel sheet sometime and see how it goes.