Point Build System

Point Build, or Point Buy, is a method of generating traits for characters in a Game System by allocating points from a budget, rather than randomly by rolling dice or picking from a menu of characters with predefined stats and abilities. In earlier games, Point Build methods work alongside a Class and Level System, although many more modern games replace classes and levels entirely.

In theory, this type of system promotes game balance by ensuring that characters built with similar point budgets have similar power levels, as opposed to the wildly imbalanced characters that can result from random rolling. However, it can lead to Min-Maxing, where players deliberately allocate points to the "best" stats and abilities for their character concept while neglecting others, which is often frowned upon.

Many systems take the Point Build method beyond character creation and award additional Character Points either in addition to or in lieu of Experience Points. In a hybrid system, each Character Level awards additional points to spend on stats and abilities. Other common features of Point Build systems include:

Different traits cost different numbers of points, theoretically putting higher costs on more desirable attributes.
Buying higher levels of a trait costs more points per rank than lower levels.
There are multiple pools of points, each of which is spent on different types of traits. This is sometimes just done at character creation to ensure the player starts off reasonably balanced, but sometimes it carries on to gameplay by having different types of experience points that can only be used on specific attributes.
- Similarly, sometimes points earned during play must be allocated to skills or abilities that the character "used" in some way, or can justify having used; thus stopping you from getting smarter simply by killing monsters.
You can gain extra points by lowering your attributes below the default starting level or taking negative traits that affect roleplaying or game mechanics (physical impairment, inability to use guns, paralyzing fear of snakes, spectacular clumsiness, etc.). There are usually limits to this to prevent ridiculously powerful characters, or characters whose flaws are actually advantages.
- Likewise, in addition to your core stats, you can spend points to take positive traits that affect roleplaying or game mechanics (such as the capacity to acrobatically dodge attacks, Matrix-style.)

The concept is not limited to characters in an RPG; simulation games frequently use point allocation (or the equivalent in terms of a cash pool) to build vehicles, robots, spaceships, or other units; and strategy games usually use a point system to create armies, with units costing a variable number of points based on their presumed strength and battles rated in terms of the number of total points allocated to each side. If The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard, AI may be given more build points at the start.

See also An Adventurer Is You. A form of Character Customization.

Examples of Point Build System include:

Action Adventure

Iji, a two-dimensional multi-directional-scrolling platforming computer game, contains a statistic system that allows the player to improve health, kicking ability, shooting damage, gun access, etc. by spending well-earned points at specific locations

First-Person Shooter

Borderlands has a point system to build up character traits and abilities, such as regenerating health when on a killing spree or increasing accuracy for sniper rifles. Every Level Up gives you one point to spend on these traits and spending enough in some skills unlocks further skills and you can choose to empty out all the points spent to reallocate them if you desire. However, you will never be able to max out every skill since the max character level is 69.

4X

Although used for building a race instead of a character, the second and third Master of Orion games give you a set amount of points to distribute as the player wishes, with positive and negative attributes. For the second game, a later technology, Evolutionary Mutation, allows the player to add four extra points, though there are some restrictions on what racial traits can be modified.
Likewise, the Galactic Civilizations games allow you to customize your race using a similar system, although some racial benefits are hardcoded.
In Sins of a Solar Empire, capital ships level up to 10. Three normal skills that can level up to 3 and a super skill with one level. Some of the super skills are game breakers; as such they're only available at level 6. Lvl6 cap ships are notably more powerful than Lvl5.
Master of Magic on difficulty above "Intro" allows custom Wizard generation. This gives 11 picks to spent on Spellbooks and "Retorts"; up to 11 books or 6 retorts total at generation (up to 13 Spellbooks and 6 Retorts at any time, via looting lairs or rival Wizard fortresses). Spellbooks give access to a random subset of spells in one of 5 realms (choosing multiple in the same realm also gives choice of one more Common starting spell, so taking 10 in a realm makes all its spells guaranteed to be available for research; 11 allows to choose 2 Uncommon and 1 Rare Spell, with all Common spells known automatically), each adds +1 basic mana income and +2 starting casting skill, each above 7th in a Realm also gives +10% Research Points and -10% Casting Costs in that Realm. Retorts give special abilities (cost 1-3 picks, some also require specific choices of up to 6 spellbooks). Also, learning spells of a given rarity, whether by research, loot or trade, requires a number of books in its Realm (Very Rare needs 3). "Arcane" spells (not tagged with a Realm) are available automatically, except Create Artifact given by Artificer retort. Other than this and primary race, starting conditions are almost completely random.
- Obviously, there are 11-book rush strategies. It's harder for Life, since it doesn't help in conquest without either adequate Normal units to buff (which need economy to build and upkeep, thus bootstrap is only somewhat accelerated) or lots of Mana for powerful summons and buffs (which takes time, buildings and/or conquest to accumulate) — especially on higher difficulty, as neutrals start with better armies.
- Higher difficulty levels give pre-made AI Wizards more and more extra picks, spent on random possible (i.e. meeting the prerequisites and no Life + Death) retorts and books. This naturally femonstrates the Combinatorial Explosion of those options, their effects on already random AI Player Personalities and randomly rolled available spells (in realm with <10 books) — as MoM wiki notes on AI Wizards, «at the "Impossible" setting, be prepared for anything».
Stars! has a point buy race customization system, with variable point costs of traits and variables increments, depending on the other features. Such as increasing penalties for Lesser Racial Traits beyond 4th (there are 14 of them).

Hack and Slash

Diablo has a class/level system, but each class has skills that can be purchased like a point build.

MMORPG

Shattered Galaxy, a squad-based MMO RTS
In Guild Wars, depending on your primary and secondary class, you have a variety of attributes on which you can spend Attribute Points, which are earned by leveling and two particular quests depending on where your starting zone was.
Ragnarok Online gives stat points for a Base Level up, and gives Skill Points for a Job Level Up.
In World of Warcraft (among others), every class has three "Talent Trees" that they may invest points in to gain new skills, specializing in certain abilities.
The Discworld MUD

Puzzle Game

Puzzle Quest uses this, primarily to keep your character leveling up after it's hit the Level Cap.

Role-Playing Game

Might and Magic
- Only the later ones (6 and up), and with a twist in 6 and 7: the pool of points was shared among all 4 characters. The early games (1-5) used random dice rolls.
Devil Survivor, though you can't change your starting stats.
Knights of the Old Republic uses the D&D point buy.
Science Girls uses this in combination with regular level building. HP and SP still go up per level, but to strengthen your moves or other stats, you have to spend points earned with each new level.
Arcanum's character generation system gives you five points at creation, one point per level, and an extra point every five levels. These points can be spent on eight statistics, sixteen skills, fifty-six technological disciplines, and eighty spells, or you can just dump them directly into hit points or fatigue.
The Fallout series' trademark SPECIAL system has separate pools of points for stats and skills.
System Shock 2 used cyber modules, which were found in-game rather than earned through level ups, to upgrade stats and skills based on a complicated point-buy structure.
Warlords Battlecry 3 (and possibly other related games) is an RPG/RTS hybrid with a Point Build system for developing the player character.
Tales of the Drunken Paladin has Brownie Points for each level up.
The Baldur's Gate series uses a hybrid system for assigning the PC's atributes: the game does the usual 2nd Ed. D&D method of rolling 3d6 for each stat, but then allows the player to redistribute the points as they wish. Of course there's nothing stopping them from hitting the 'Reroll' button until they get a point buy in the high 90s, but playing an Honest Rolls Character is a popular Self-Imposed Challenge.

Shoot'Em Up

Heavy Weapon gives you an upgrade point after each completed level, which you can distribute among your weapons and equipment. You are able to freely move points from one weapon to another, however, you must use all your upgrade points before you can do the next level.

Simulation Game

Slave Maker lets you spent points to build a special talent after each slave you complete. Eventually, versions of the game let you use a 100-point system from the start to determine your character's starting abilities.
Dwarf Fortress, in both its Fortress Mode and Adventure Mode. The player must purchase skills for his starting seven dwarves, as well as equipment and pets. An adventurer just has to allocate points for skills and physical attributes, and is automatically assigned fixed gear based on highest weapon skill.
The disc-based version of Crush Crumble and Chomp allows you to build your own monster with "Monster Points". The number of points available and the cost for each ability varies based on the body form you choose to start with.

Tabletop Games

Champions with its Hero System was the first RPG to use a Point Build system; all other RPGs at the time used predefined characters or dice rolls, being directly inspired by Dungeons & Dragons.
GURPS, probably the most well-supported point buy system to date (in terms of supplemental material).
- Fallout, originally planned to be an adaptation of the above, but latter turned into the SPECIAL system.
Mutants and Masterminds
7th Sea
Car Wars
The Tri-Stat system, used for Big Eyes, Small Mouth, Silver Age Sentinels, and various other games.
Shadowrun
- Editions one through three had you assign "Priority" to each of 5 categories: attributes, skills, resources, magic, and race. Each priority had a different amount of points (or money and spell-only skill-points, in the case of resources) to spend on that particular category. The Shadowrun Companion featured an optional character build system that was entirely point-based.
- In Fourth Edition the tiers are gone. Character creation is based on total build points, and there are only limits on how many points can be spent in a few categories that apply across the board.
Storyteller System games
Fading Suns
Legend of the Five Rings (although eventually the points will result in gaining a rank and hence a new skill, the speed of this depends on where you put them).
FUDGE has a point based system as one character generation method. The other is a totally subjective system, and there are no levels.
FATE, a tabletop system based on FUDGE with a few different mechanics, uses a simple point-buy(-ish) system, involving multiple phases during character creation. The phase-based character generation system is not obligatory.
The Unisystem, used for games like All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Conspiracy X, Witchcraft, and various others.
Savage Worlds: though it's a mix of several things. An optional rule (thanks to the Deadlands inclusion) is to determine your starting stats and skill points by drawing a hand of cards and assigning them to each.
Heavy Gear 2 had a limit for number of points in a single gear, and for the whole team.
Unknown Armies.
Eclipse Phase
Most newer Class and Level System games tend to compensate for their weaknesses by adopting a point buy method for various parts.
- One option in Pathfinder at the GM's discretion.
Dungeons & Dragons, originally the Trope Codifier of dice-based character creation, adopted a Point Buy system as an alternative (and frequently preferred) method.
- Even in AD&D2, they added player chosen 'proficiencies' that allowed PCs to obtain and raise skills, and another point pool for weapon proficiencies and combat styles. DMG has class-building system (which "as is" cannot replicate a core class, because it makes custom classes weaker).
  - Players Option ("2.5" rules upgrade) has a full Character Point based system with optional abilities from race and class tied in. Unfortunately, it wasn't clearly separated between subrace/subclass/kit generation and character generation layers, even if obviously intended to be used this way in most cases, and even examples not all used the unified system as is (e.g. in subraces pick racial special abilities from those dumped in a list, but not penalties, so you'd have to reverse-engineer it if you want the same method applied to something in your campaign that isn't on the list).
- D&D3 uses point-buy skill system (for some reason it lacks diminishing returns, and thus leads to insane level of skill minmaxing, which is then supported by difficulty numbers raised accordingly - which in turn enforces it and makes it harder to patch).
- 4th edition finally went fully point-buy with that method becoming the default for attributes and the skill system pared down to a simpler version ("trained" or "untrained" vs. counting ranks, paid for with initial class skill choices and optionally feats rather than from a dedicated "skill point" pool).
Warhammer 40,000, being a PVP-Balanced wargame, uses it to balance opponents and regulate battle size (and thus length). Each unit in an army costs a certain number of points, and before the game the players agree on the number of points available per side. The armies must also fit a designated minimum and maximum number of units in each category and models in each unit. The more points, the more numerous and/or powerful the units in each army will be. Also, the more units in each army, the longer the game tends to go on, because they take longer to move and determine attack. 500 points is probably the lowest playable total (that's maybe a squad or two, depending on the race), 1,000 is the average game and 4,000 is usually as high as most players will go outside of a multi-player "megabattle"; much more than that and the game would take all day. Also, Crack is Cheaper than Warhammer 40,000, so it's hard to get past that even when if you want to.
- Ditto for its spin-offs, such as Battlefleet Gothic.
Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay uses character build/advance system using XP - essentially, this removes the middleman.
- Rogue Trader uses point-build system for ships, which is for some crazy reason more crude than that of Battlefleet Gothic, despite the RPG being more detail oriented and usually on a much smaller scale. Also, it's combined with path system for character and "Warrant and Ship Origin" path (aside of the background, the latter mostly produces different combinations of starting Ship Points and Profit Factor).
- Only War has custom regiment building system. Not very compatible with Warhammer 40,000. Again, it keeps to very small numbers, to the point that this seems to made it harder to expand.
Cartoon Action Hour does this in both editions. The first season points are called "Character Points", while the second season points are called "Proof of Purchase Points".
In Old World of Darkness, every game has characters built with a slightly different set of rules, right down what skills are available. In New World of Darkness all characters are built first as though they were normal mortals. Then, if they are not normal humans, they have a character template attached from the specific system.
Battle Machines
New Horizon is exclusively point-based, although some traits cost geodites (the setting's currency).
Some versions of Traveller, though not all.

Tower Defense

Cursed Treasure.
Gemcraft.

Turn-Based Strategy

Certain games in the Super Robot Taisen series follow this method of character growth with a few examples being the Original Generation games and MX.

Web Games

Mafia Wars has players allocate points earned with each Character Level among five stats: Energy (allowing more jobs to be performed), Stamina and Health (allowing more PvP battles), and Attack/Defense (making the character more effective at PvP).

Wide Open Sandbox

Dwarf Fortress has embark points that are paint both for starting goods and skills; there's also cap on starting skills per dwarf. Various "embark strategies", shape early to medium stage development.
- Adventurer mode gives the Player Chatacter starting points to improve attributes and skills - number differs with difficulty level.
Minecraft has an experience points system that is used to enchant tools and pieces of armor. The more levels you spend, the stronger the enchantment gets and the higher the chances of having multiple enchantments will be. Placing bookshelves around the enchantment table will increase the chances of getting higher level enchantments.