Hi,

I was thinking of using the point-buy system, but giving my players, 31 points instead of 27.  They would then not be allowed any racial modifiers. Variants and any race that starts with a fly, burrowing or swim speed, would not be allowed. 

Can I have your thoughts on this idea please?

Thanks

15 still max?

Generally it's a nerf. Up to you if you feel that is necessary for your campaign.

Going from a 14 to a 15 in point buy is 2 points. So giving your players 4 extra points roughly translates to two ability scores going from 14 to 15. That is distinctly worse than most races flat +2 and +1. And as Lathlaer pointed out - unless you remove the cap of 15 - nobody is going to have a score higher than 15 - and if you do remove the 15 cap - then surely the higher scores will cost even more points. It's really restrictive.

The other problem is the races that don't have a +2 and a +1. Those races typically have more or less features to compensate for either having less or more ability scores. A player that chooses a race that only gives +2 in total might feel way better about your idea than a player who chooses a race with +4 in total.

I mean - it could work - but I don't know why you would bother?

Quote from Lathlaer >>

15 still max?

Generally it's a nerf. Up to you if you feel that is necessary for your campaign.

 
No, they would have to assign their ability scores manually, but they would put those extra 4 points anywhere they wanted.  

I would just add 16 to the point-buy table, and make it cost 10 points.  That is still in line with how point-buy works, but it would allow players to start with higher scores in any score they wanted, for any race. 

I don’t want to use Tasha’s but I like the idea of not having racial modifiers.  Everyone starts with 8 in everything and then can get up to 16 in any score they want. 

Two 16s, one 14 and a 12 should be easy with 31 points.  Or they could have one 16, one 14 and the rest of their scores lower, but more balanced. Alternatively, they could just start with lower scores and have all their scores more balanced. Depending on the kind of character they wanted to create; a generalist, or specialist.

With 31 points, even generalists could be entirely feasible 1st level characters. 

Without using Tasha’s at all. Or that was my idea anyway

I do a personal system which isn't actually biased on points at all. The total of all 6 of your stats is 72 minimum of 6, max of 18 (before racial bonuses). This allows for 12's across the board with as much personalization as would be reasonable. 

31 with 18 as cap and paying 3 points for 17 and 18 would allow for:

18 17 8 8 8 8 or 16 16 14 10 8 8 or 16 14 14 12 10 8

without any additional race modifications that looks reasonable. What were you thinking on how to appoint the skills, resistances or proficiencies? 

As someone who isn’t in favour of custom ASIs, I don’t really care for this either. It shouldn’t be unacceptably unbalanced, but if I was a player I might be a little bummed out races like Lizardfolk would get sacrificed for this. Probably a very minor thing for most, maybe a lot of those races wouldn’t be allowed otherwise anyway, but that’s my two cents’ worth.

Do you have Tasha's? If so you can achieve roughly the same outcome without adding the needless complexity of a houserule by just going with the new racial options.

If you're trying to emulate those results without Tasha's, then it seems like a fine substitute.

To be equivalent to a typical race where the stat benefits line up, I would go with 33 and allow a 16 for 11 points, 17 for 13 points.

The main difference is that a PC who doesn't want a 14 will have one more ability point.

Quote from Vince_Snetterton >>

Or play the game the way it was designed, with a 27 point buy.

 27 points, with a +2 to one stat and a +1 to another stat, if done efficiently, will result in 33 points.

Wouldn't that just be the same as what is is Tashas? Since the DM gets to choose how much of the options from the origin manager they want to use. 

Quote from ConalTheGreat >>

Wouldn't that just be the same as what is is Tashas?

 Outside of some rather esoteric stat setups, yes. It allows a stat setup like 17/12/12/12/12/12, whereas with Tasha's the best you can do is 17/12/12/12/12/11.  I'm not sure if you'd ever want to do that stat combo, though.

One simple question, which should always be asked when making a change to what's written (houserule, etc.).

Why? What are you trying to accomplish by doing this that the current 27 + racial mods doesn't handle?

Quote from Vince_Snetterton >>

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

To be equivalent to a typical race where the stat benefits line up, I would go with 33 and allow a 16 for 11 points, 17 for 13 points.

The main difference is that a PC who doesn't want a 14 will have one more ability point.

 Or play the game the way it was designed, with a 27 point buy. I have played with many a DM that tinkers with the starting ability scores. I am playing in 2 games that way right now (the game I DM is the straight 27 point buy). The two games have resulted in chars with ridiculous stats, and the DM is always struggling to come up with decent encounters because of it.

Rolling for stats is also an officially sanctioned method for character gen. A DM would have to work pretty hard to get results more ridiculous than that method can produce.