Point buy character creation?

[daddystabz]

I've never been a fan of rolling for one's stats. It creates inequality and doesn't always allow one to play the kind of character he/she would like to. Has anyone developed a method for point buy character creation?

[Wizardawn]

I don't see the need. There are a couple of ability rolling options in S&S but there are a couple more in LL that may also be used. I always used Method I from the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide for any D&D type 3d6 ability score game...

All scores are recorded and arranged in the order the player desires. 4d6 are rolled, and the lowest die (or one of the lower) is discarded.

It almost never fails to allow a player to make a character they want (this is ignoring classes like the AD&D Players Handbook Bard).

[Stephen]

Here's an approach that you might try:

The character starts with 10s for all abilities, and zero points. The character can "sell" an ability score for points that can be used to "buy" a higher score in a different ability using the following point values:
Lowering an ability to 7 is worth 4 extra points
8 is worth 2
9 is worth 1
Raising an ability to 11 costs 1 point
Raising to 12 costs 2
13 costs 3
14 costs 5
15 costs 7
16 costs 10
17 costs 13
18 costs 17

Using this approach, no ability can be lower than 7 or higher than 18.

So for example:
10 / 10 / 10 / 10 / 10 / 10
9 / 11 / 10 / 10 / 10 / 10
7 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 11 / 10
7 / 7 / 15 / 11 / 10 / 10
7 / 7 / 7 / 7 / 9 / 18

If you want more epic characters, you can start with all scores equal to 12 or 15.

[cosmic55]

What I like to do with rolling (in other games, new to S&S) is have each player roll 1-2 stats, then everyone in the group uses the same numbers. Each person can place them in whatever order they like, then apply racial modifiers (or whatever). Seems a bit more fair.