DM Side Optimization: Fairness of Character Generation

[Endarire]

I know that casters and non-casters are of different tiers.  I also noticed the current gradiated point buy system favors casters who can afford a 16 or 18 in their prime stat, even with low point buys.

I was seriously considering changing the system to be a 28 point buy, all 1:1.  (Typical 32 point buys yielded a total of +26 to +32 in stats.)  I know this setup helps casters a bit more, but it also helps the non-casters who need 3+ moderate or high stats to compete.

Thoughts?

[Maat_Mons]

You might consider having different point cost tables for different stats.  You could put physical stats on a 1:1 system, but keep mental stats on a graduated system.  That way, it's easy to have really good physical stats and okay mental stats, but hard to have really good mental stats. 

[Tonymitsu]

Personally I prefer Jaron's method of assigning different point amounts to different tiers (28 to T1, 32 to T2, 36 to T3, etc)

Massive stats across the board really aren't going to make much difference.  Sure you're saves will be higher, but so will his save DC's.

[Mixster]

This is actually one of the reasons I like dice generated stats in IRL games. If there's a gentlemans agreement around the table that the guys with the worst stats plays the higher tier classes, it all balances out in the first 1-7 levels were most campaigns are played.

Giving players a massive stat increase isn't sound IMO, since it doesn't do much to screw with interparty balance but it does screw the fight in favor of the players, unless you do something to every monster to address that.

I would much rather empower only the weak classes, and as such I'm a big fan of the Partial Gestalt solution put forward by JaronK in his Tiers Thread, But I believe it can be expanded upon a bit.

You could for example expand it with:
Tier 1 Stay the way they are, perhaps with the most obvious screw-overs in place, and still a gentlemans rule not to screw too much with the game.
Tier 2, gets buffed to tier 1 power through simple addition of more class features, sorcerers for example get class features, and don't need to take extra actions to metamagic, as well as an option to swap one or two spells known per day.
Tier 3, Gets to Gestalt with Tier 5 or less Classes.
Tier 4 Gets to gestalt with Tier 4 classes.
Tier 5 either gets to triple gestalt with other tier 5 or 6 classes.
Tier 6 PC classes (samurai is the only I can think of) gets buffs to bring them up to Tier 5. Tier 6 NPC classes stay relevant for being Gestalties.

So if you wanted to, you could be an Expert//Monk//Fighter. Or you Could be a Monk//Warblade, or a Swordsage//Fighter. Or you could even be a Barbarian//Rogue. This still doesn't quite adress the level gap between tier 1 and tier 3, but it helps it out a bit. At levels 1-10 most games will be pretty balanced if the Tier 3 or less characters know what to do.

Alternatively, you could give each tier a "point rating". When taking a level, depending on the power of the campaign you could gestalt up to that point rating for example:
A Tier 1 class Costs 15 Points
A Tier 2 Class costs 12 points
A Tier 3 Class costs 8 points
A Tier 4 Class costs 5 Points
A Tier 5 Class costs 3 Points
A Tier 6 Class Costs 2 Points
If the DM wants a mediocre powered campaign he tells you that your power level for each level should be 12. Thus he is banning Tier 1 classes (unless he wants to nerf them to bring them down to a 12 point class)
This means that players could possibly either take a Tier 3 class and two Tier 6 Classes or one Tier 5 Class. They could alternatively quadruple Gestalt a Tier 5 class, or Sextuple Gestalt (which is pretty meaningless anyway) a Tier 6 class, they could also grab a Tier 4 Class, A tier 5 Class and two Tier 6 Classes.
With this system, you could even go more in-depth and apply a distinct point value to each class, or even deeper and apply a distinct point value to each class level. Adding later levels of Cleric isn't that hard, as opposed to adding cleric prestige classes, however the first is expensive, while all levels of druid is hard.
This is something I'm going to investigate further.

[Endarire]

Let's assume that a gradiated 32 point buy is the standard.

If we switch to a 1:1 28 point buy, how much does this help the PCs in general?

At what point do the differences in base stats stop mattering that much?

[X-Codes]

Let's assume that a gradiated 32 point buy is the standard.

If we switch to a 1:1 28 point buy, how much does this help the PCs in general?

At what point do the differences in base stats stop mattering that much?

I don't think the differences in base stats matter much at all beyond level 3.  The thing is, even a Wizard with 15 Int can avoid most "[Save] Negates" spells and still be a GOD.  In fact, saving throws in general are avoided at higher levels, even with high ability scores.  At that point, the only tangible benefit to an 18 Intelligence to start is a few more spells (of which a given wizard probably already has a couple dozen).

So yeah, stats matter if you either don't have enough or have barely enough for your character to function.  If you have a gross excess, then you're really not getting a huge benefit out of that excess.

[Mixster]

Stats matter little for Tier 1 and 2 Classes, but once you get to Tier 3 and below you want high stats.

However, assume a 28 point 1:1 buy, this would probably make a standard GOD wizard go 8, 16, 18, 18, 8, 8. As opposed to 32 point buy were he'd be 8, 14, 16, 18, 8, 8 or 8,14,14,18,10,10. All in all for 28 point 1:1 buy he gets a few more HP. And +1 to hit with his ray spells. Decent power-up through the game with more HP, but they are still negligible due to his spells.

A Standard Fighter (who wants to trip later) would probably go with a 28 1:1 of 18,13,16,13,8,8 Or if he can go with items to qualify for feats he would go with 18,11,18,13,8,8. With 32 Point Buy, he would probably go 16,14,16,14,8,8 or with items qualifying him: 18,11,16,11,8,8 ; All in all these stat differentials help the Fighter little, at best 28 points makes sure he has an 18 in strength with is useful for that extra damage at the first few levels.

The bard on the other hand, doesn't really like this though if he wants Words of Creation that is (and most bards do):
32 PB 14,10,14,15,8,16 If archer bard reverse dex and str.
28 1:1 PB 13,8,14,15,8,18

All in all I think 1:1 Point buys reward those who are SAD (or require just 2 abilities) too much, and they already get way to much from that IMO.

All in all I'd say it's a general power-up of the player team of about

[Aliek]

I have this idea where a higher-tier class could be considered to have LA, so they start out slower, but can still reach max level. Something such as, while a wizard would be level 1 or a sorcerer be level 2, there could be a level 5 fighter and still they get the same exp after an encounter. Could be fun, I'd say. Of course, any level 15 wiz is going to overpower a level 20 fighter, but it narrows the gap for quite some time.

One could say that it works like this for RP reasons. The fighter's art is easier to learn and master.

[SneeR]

Aliek, that system is one I would ferociously object to. The lowest levels are where casters are weakest and beatsticks are strongest. CR is actually pretty spot-on until level 5 or so. Making casters 5 levels behind is going to end up with a lot of dead wizards if you are going to accurately challenge the beatsticks.

I would definitely avoid basing point-buy on class. I have seen an excellent gish build that had paladin as its first two levels, followed by sorcerer, abjusrant champion, etc. That person would get an edge in charater creation because paladin is so low tier. However, their intent was never to go straight paladin, so that system immediately breaks down.

I like the idea of breaking it into physical and mental. That isn't quite the same for initiator classes that get bonuses due to other attributes, but it definitely makes the fighters, monks, rogues, and paladins get a head up in the middle levels before plunging under again.

Besides, everyone could use a few more hit points!

[ShadowViper]

I always have perferred what my irl group and I refer to as the "Take 82" rule.

All six of your stats added together will equal 82, no single attribute can be higher than 18 or lower than 3(before racial modifiers), as if you had rolled for your stats.

[Aliek]

Yeah, I didn't put much thought into it, so far. But something based on levels/experience could be interesting. Problem being it doesn't account for multiclassing, and then there's this problem that melee would rule way more early on. Still, if we consider a game like this to range from 1-15(tier 1) or 5-19(tier 5), the wizard will still take over in usefulness at the end, but the breakout point would be closer to the average level range. Free LA to lower-tiers would be something to consider, tough.

When I thought that at first, I had mid-level play in mind. A 9th level wizard, 10th level psion and 12th level barbarian would be a little bit more balanced than 10/10/10. But yeah, early levels would be hell for a caster and a breeze for meleers, while later on the casters would easily catch up and overpower them.

[RobbyPants]

Aliek makes two good points about the multiclassing and melee doing well early on. At low levels, melee characters don't really need a boost (well, other than monks).

The big problem is that the game balances differently at different levels, so you'd be hard pressed to come up with a quick fix that doesn't have counter-intuitive effects at some point in the game. You can bypass this a bit if you know the game is only going to run for a certain level range.

I'm also not a big fan of using tiers to assign boosts or penalties to PCs. The tiers are only useful insomuch as they tell you what a PC might be capable of, and even then, you can get weirdly different tier assignments for certain classes at certain levels*. Writing "wizard" in the character sheet only warns you of potential, it doesn't actually tell you what will happen in play. I'm more of a fan of looking at what any individual PC (and the player) is capable of, and go from there.



*My understanding of artificers is that they're pretty crappy until 8th level, and wouldn't really be considered tier 1 before that point, and depending on how you look at it, you could argue that fighters and barbarians are tier 2 at really low levels (instant kill almost anything on a successful attack roll, no save).

[veekie]

Well the fundamental balance issues remain unaltered. The caster's strength is not linear in nature. In fact, linearly it can be quite weak. All making their advancement lopsided does is simply making them weak in an area they were weak to begin with.

One possible way is to simply limit spell availability drastically, to 2e levels. That is, the majority of casters would only have a very small list of guaranteed spells, others not being necessarily available. So a cleric has a strict list available for picking based on each deity, a specialist wizard likewise for known spells, a sorceror is limited to a set of choices from bloodlines etc.

[RobbyPants]

Yeah, other fixes would certainly be nicer. I was posting that in context of the OP's subject of fiddling with ability scores at chargen to help with balance.

[Redeemer of Ogar]

Yeah, I didn't put much thought into it, so far. But something based on levels/experience could be interesting.... When I thought that at first, I had mid-level play in mind. A 9th level wizard, 10th level psion and 12th level barbarian would be a little bit more balanced than 10/10/10.

So really you're looking to go backwards to the older editions which had completely different experience point charts for different character classes. Rogues flew through the levels while wizards scrabbled for XP. You could easily accomplish this by assigning a Spell Tax to caster XP, say 10 or 20%. In fact, just for grins, you could say that Tier 1 classes are favored for noone, not even humans, and just apply mutli-classing XP penalties as though they also had a lvl1 non-favored class. Any PrC that advances casting in a class would also be subject to the penalty, as though their level was PrC+Casting Class level. Effectively, apply a 20% XP penalty to casters starting at lvl 3?

[radionausea]

I always have perferred what my irl group and I refer to as the "Take 82" rule.

All six of your stats added together will equal 82, no single attribute can be higher than 18 or lower than 3(before racial modifiers), as if you had rolled for your stats.

This is what we do as well.  Except we say no lower than 7 before racial modifiers.  I wonder why it's 82?

[Redeemer of Ogar]

I always have perferred what my irl group and I refer to as the "Take 82" rule.

All six of your stats added together will equal 82, no single attribute can be higher than 18 or lower than 3(before racial modifiers), as if you had rolled for your stats.

This is what we do as well.  Except we say no lower than 7 before racial modifiers.  I wonder why it's 82?

18, 14, 14, 12, 12, 12 eh? Pretty beefy. Or 18, 18, 18, 10, 10, 8 if you're a front-line fighter I suppose.

[Prime32]

I have this idea where a higher-tier class could be considered to have LA, so they start out slower, but can still reach max level. Something such as, while a wizard would be level 1 or a sorcerer be level 2, there could be a level 5 fighter and still they get the same exp after an encounter. Could be fun, I'd say. Of course, any level 15 wiz is going to overpower a level 20 fighter, but it narrows the gap for quite some time.

One could say that it works like this for RP reasons. The fighter's art is easier to learn and master.

Aliek, that system is one I would ferociously object to. The lowest levels are where casters are weakest and beatsticks are strongest. CR is actually pretty spot-on until level 5 or so. Making casters 5 levels behind is going to end up with a lot of dead wizards if you are going to accurately challenge the beatsticks.

You could try using XP buyoff in reverse? At lv6 and every 3rd level thereafter, you gain +1 LA.

[Endarire]

Another Q:  Getting only +1 to a stat every 4 levels (or HD) is pretty meh.  Most casters put their bump into their casting stat, most melee guys bump STR, and most the rest bump DEX.  Usually, this bump isn't noticed until 8 HD when it becomes +2 stat or +1 modifier.

How would making it +2 to one stat every 4 HD change things?

[SneeR]

I have this idea where a higher-tier class could be considered to have LA, so they start out slower, but can still reach max level. Something such as, while a wizard would be level 1 or a sorcerer be level 2, there could be a level 5 fighter and still they get the same exp after an encounter. Could be fun, I'd say. Of course, any level 15 wiz is going to overpower a level 20 fighter, but it narrows the gap for quite some time.

One could say that it works like this for RP reasons. The fighter's art is easier to learn and master.

Aliek, that system is one I would ferociously object to. The lowest levels are where casters are weakest and beatsticks are strongest. CR is actually pretty spot-on until level 5 or so. Making casters 5 levels behind is going to end up with a lot of dead wizards if you are going to accurately challenge the beatsticks.

You could try using XP buyoff in reverse? At lv6 and every 3rd level thereafter, you gain +1 LA.

That sounds really good! That delays them when they actually start amassing power. Of course, caster players must be very understanding to give up 9th level spells before epic.

Another Q:  Getting only +1 to a stat every 4 levels (or HD) is pretty meh.  Most casters put their bump into their casting stat, most melee guys bump STR, and most the rest bump DEX.  Usually, this bump isn't noticed until 8 HD when it becomes +2 stat or +1 modifier.

How would making it +2 to one stat every 4 HD change things?

4E does something like this, actually goes even farther, and I really like the idea. What 4E does is actually gives you +2 to 2 different stats (must be different). This actually lets casters max more than one stat, and lets it beatsticks be more versatile.