Pathfinder 1e: The 15-Point Default

There is a thought in the Pathfinder 1e community that the way to combat power creep at higher levels is to use the 15-point character point limit when designing characters. Honestly, I got so used to the 25-point limit and having epic characters I forgot the joy of having characters with a few flaws and a couple ability score bonuses in the negative range.

Honestly, they feel a lot more fun to play. I am challenged and trying to think of ways around those limitations. When you have +1 modifiers in almost everything, you don't need to think that much since you are pretty good at most everything.

And this makes items that provide temporary or permanent ability score bonuses worth getting your hands on later. A manual of bodily health that gives you a permanent +2 to CON means a lot more when your CON is 8 than it is 16. At a score of 16, I care a lot less about that book. And you get points as you level, plus hey, there are always GM fiat awards to abilities.

If you want characters to end up as 25-point epic heroes, take that 10-point difference between 15 and 25 and award an extra ability score improvement point at every even level. There! You feel like you are gaining something by not using the 25-point starting level, and it gives you more cool things to spend when you level. Remember that these are not "free ability score points" but point-buy "improvement points," so you will need to use the difference between the current score and the next level on the chart on page 16, so going from a 13 to a 14 costs 2 of these "improvement" points.

If you like only the math and tracking the points, just award an ability score point every two levels (instead of four), and you will make up the (on average) five points from the difference. Houserule away!

So you don't really have to worry about low starting scores anyways.

And the epic characters will be the level 20 ones and progress slowly.