 Howdy how's it going? My name's Davy Chappie, and I have made many characters throughout my years of tabletop roleplaying, and one of the most annoying things in the world for me was spending my time working out a character, coming up with a cool concept that I could bring to the table, and then I roll for stats and everything goes down the drain. The truth is, I'm not the best at rolling dice. When I was a kid, my group and I were constantly making new characters for campaigns that never happened, and it always felt really shitty to just find out that all of my stats were immediately inferior to somebody else's because I made the poor decision of tossing my squares the wrong way. Or maybe I'd roll decent, but other people around me rolled poorly, and suddenly now I feel shitty because for no reason at all, I was put in a higher position and I feel guilty about it. But then 5E came in, riding on a golden horse, and upon its back, it carried the solution to all my problems, the point buy system. Finally, a way to create characters without having the party members be unfairly lopsided right out the gate, and so I took point buy, I ran back to my fellow roleplayers, and I showed them the new religion, cast rolling for stats into the fire, destroy it, and my fellow roleplayers turned back to me and said no. Further inquiries as to why everybody was against point buy, and also why we play our games on a steep cliff just above an active volcano, led to pretty much the same few answers. It's not what I know, it's too complicated, I like randomness more, stop raking into my house and asking me questions. For the first thing, I get it, change is weird, nobody likes change, that's why I use a credit card. But if the only thing stopping you from using a better system is that you weren't indoctrinated into it from the very beginning, then what are you doing watching this video? I'm not gonna change your mind. And to the next point, people think point buy is complicated, but it really just complicates itself by 5E being bad at explaining it. Here, point buy sets all your stats at 8, and then it gives you 27 points to put wherever you want. Increasing a stat costs a point, except when you raise it to 14 and 15, which costs 2 points, and then it caps out at 15 so that you can't engorge yourself on one stat. After you're finished with point buy, then you add your racial bonuses, and that's it. Now you know how to use point buy, you're welcome. Some people say that they don't want to do math, and I say, tough titties, the game is math. And if you want to be lazy, just go online and use a point buy calculator like I do. But if that still doesn't sway you, if the lustful call of gambling with your plastic sugar cubes is too alluring, if you just can't get high without that level of randomness, then go ahead, your party can do whatever it wants, forget about me. But I also know that a lot of people aren't even giving point buy a chance because of all the purists out there who think that rolling for stats is somehow the only real way to play Dungeons and Dragons. Fun fact, 5E was made for point buy. You want to know how I know that? The Fighter and the Rogue. In an effort to balance out these two classes with the rest of the choices, Wizards of the Coast added more ability score increases to the Rogue and way more ABI's to the Fighter in order to show that they were more marshally and or mentally capable than the other classes. The point of the Fighter is to have higher base stats as a means of keeping up with the guy that can cast firebearers out of his hat and it screws with the Fighter's balance when you de-level the playing field. With rolling for stats, if the Fighter rolls really high, then they just end up picking feats all day because the decision-making process, where they have to make a choice as to whether to take a feat or an ABI, is completely taken away. But that's not so bad. What is bad is when the Fighter ends up with low stats because now the choice between upping your stats or taking a feat is still being made for you but it's BS because the Fighter basically has to spend all of its ability score increases playing catch-up with the guy who just let fate decide and fate decided to be a shit-wha-hole. You want to randomize your stats? How about you just throw around your points randomly? Or, better yet, go ahead, roll for stats and then, if they're too high, you can lower some of them so that they'll fit in with point-by. Or, if you rolled too low, you can spend the difference in points however you want. It's still random, it's still weird, but it doesn't break the game balance before the game has even started because rolling an 18 for stats and then getting a plus 2 from your racial bonus means that you get a 20 at level 1 and having a 20 in an ability score is supposed to represent that you are the apex at a given thing that nobody outside of inhuman beings are capable of being better than you at a given talent. Starting at level 1 and already having a 20 in something is like rolling up a new character who killed a dragon in his backstory. You just want to be the best at the game and you don't particularly care if it makes sense. Even Jarlaxle Bainry, the DND King of Charisma, only has a 19 and he's a G. But, in the end, what it all comes down to is personal preference. I can talk all day and all night about how much better point-by is than rolling for stats. I can have all my players use point-by so that I can indoctrinate a new generation of roll players who will instinctively oppose rolling for stats on principle, but really, much like rolling for health, it all comes down to whether you want to take a gamble or not. If you want, let people make the choice to either buy or roll their stats, and hey, maybe it can convince your teammates to allow the temptation of point-by to sway them into giving it a try sometime. But, that'll about do it. I hope you enjoyed this video. I know it was a little shorter, but be sure to share it with all your tabletop friends and maybe support me on Patreon so that I can spread the good word of point-by to all who will hear my whines. But yeah. Davy out.