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

I actually kind of like the point buy system, as it does add another layer of planning and complexity to developing your character.

On the other hand, I find a bizarre, pathologically demented satisfaction out of rerollling again and again until I end up with a 95 total ability point Demi-god Mary Sue.

I’d like to think that when we can roll characters I will only do this occasionally and will mostly stick to point buy generation, but who am I kidding?

How about everybody else.

I think I prefer the rolls to be honest, taking a little bit of control out of my hands feels a bit better like I'm not powergaming it. I suspect I'll probably do point buy my first playthrough once full release hits, and roll every subsequent playthrough just to keep it a little more interesting.

Point buy is good because it balances power, but often it merely prevents you from taking feats.

Only a few feat choices are a power increase, while the rest are there to make the game more enjoyable. Choosing between +2 str/dex or mobile will lead to you having to sacrifice power for the fun of mobile and hit n run tactics.

So while I appreciate point buy, I think I'd rather play a character starting with a 20 so I can have more fun with feats.

Point buy all the way. Some classes will be seriously unbalanced if you can roll several high stats. Barbarian and maybe Paladin probably being the worst offenders

Being able to play as a multi-class monk / spellcaster with high dex, con, wis, and casting stats is a guilty pleasure of mine.

Personally I dm with rolling, but allow to reroll a single total to curb out the pesky double 8s. (and allow keeping either total, if you happen to roll lower than originally)
I find the results more interesting, than rather stale point buy :p

When I DM my rules are you roll one character 3D6, and can reroll one dice (so if you roll a 6 6 1, you can reroll that 1). If you don’t like what you roll, then you can point buy.

When they add rolling for stats, they should probably make sure to force the minimum jump distance to be 4.5 meters, even for STR scores 7 or lower, otherwise people who have less than 8 STR will get stuck at the mandatory jump.

Been playing D&D for 4 years and i've never rolled for my stats.

You guys making me feel like i've been missing out.

Let's just say it wasn't unusual for a player to spend minimum 10 minutes clicking the reroll button in the original Baldur's Gate games. Add 50 minutes to that time and that wouldn't be unusual either ...

Rolling is a mixed bag. Sometimes you will get amazing characters, but sometimes you will get trash. I personally don’t mind playing trash, as that can be fun, but a lot of people I know get really discouraged by it, so I always provide point buy as a back up.

In my current campaign my sorcerer’s stats are 11 20 12 13 14 20 at level 14, and I’ve only needed to take ability points over feats once, so that is pretty fun.

I like the option.

I never did point buy until I jumped into my first 5E campaign.
3.5E and Pathfinder saw me roll for stats every time. My DM either did 3d6 & drop the lowest, or, if he wanted us to be a bit stronger, 4d6 & drop the lowest & reroll 1's & 2's

Point-buy really makes sense in a party, where you don't want the other PCs to be overshadowed by the one PC whose player 'somehow' managed to roll three 18s and nothing under 14 (yes, those with a few years experience of PnP have all played with That Player). It gives a nice level playing field. We use the set stat array, which is similar (you allocate a preset set of numbers to your stats). That would also work for BG3 should the designers be able to implement it.

In addition, I generally have an idea what the character is going to be before I put pencil to paper (or, increasingly nowadays, finger to keyboard). If I want to play a Norse warrior with a Big Hammer, I'm going to very disappointed if I roll 6 for STR. Spread rolling is better, where you roll six sets of stats and then allocate them, but even this doesn't really ensure your hefty warrior is going to have anything more than slightly-above-average STR. Especially when the party wizard is stronger than you are.

My first ever AD&D character, a cleric back in 1980, found his class calling because we used the old method of rolling 3d6 in turn for each stat. I ended up with my best stat being WIS 13, and thus was a cleric. It sucked, especially as I also rolled 1hp, and I was not sorry when he was killed by orcs. Luckily I persevered with RPGs, but swiftly converted to Runequest which became the start of long and beautiful relationship with classless RPGs.

The mandatory jump is from high to low. You can go beyond your "range" if you jump from high to low. It just hurts a bit and leaves you on your knees for a short while. You can see this easily in the very first room by jumping from the ledge to beyond your range line on the floor.

Reminds me of a character I rolled back in middle school. We were using an unofficial D&D supplement that used mana for wizard spells. Rolled a crap wizard, and it wasn’t until we were an hour in that I realized I didn’t have enough mana to cast any spells. The DM asked if I wanted to reroll and I said no, I’d go with it. In the first fight against a kobold I fumbled and broke my quarterstaff. I did kill the bigger though. My only kill of that session.

I enjoyed myself, but that was the one and only time I played that character. 😂

At first when I read the "10 minutes" I was thinking "wow you must have be lucky" then I saw your "Add 50 minutes to that time and that wouldn't be unusual either" and was thinking yeah yeah that's more like it.
I had a lot of fun doing it.

That's me setting up a party for Icewind Dale.

I know some people actively enjoy playing crap characters (because there is no pressure to succeed?), but I usually like to have something that makes my character important or unusual. A high stat is not essential, but if I am a wizard I don't want another wizard in the party who is better than me in all areas. Unless I deliberately play a rubbish wizard, of course.

Our first session was terrible because we had no idea of the rules and the GM had little idea of how to run a game. We encountered a Leucrotta (we were 1st level and just starting out) and, because we had a character who was the fighter, the rest of us stood back and watched him fight. I did try to help at one point, but with only 1hp I decided to throw my mace at the Leucrotta. I missed and hit the fighter, who was not best pleased.

No; random rolling on 3d6 offers no appeal to me now. I like to design characters rather than generate them.

I'm saying that right now with 4.5 meters, most of the destination is not "beyond the range", it says "Too far". If the distance modifier drops, that jump likely won't be allowed. But the solution is to leave the minimum at 4.5.

Even if you can make it, you don't have a lot of HP to spare to take damage, and the next healing station is past some combat. Probably not an insurmountable obstacle, with the autosave, though.