My friend Sirperry and I, and our gaming group of yore, don't like point buy. Personally, I
hate the taste and I think Sirperry just likes rolling dice. We've devised a system that allows players to roll and still keeps most people in balance, or at least satisfied. Now, you can stop me if you've heard this one, but here it is:
Everyone rolls one set of stats (unassigned) by your favorite rolling system. Once they have a set of stats rolled up, everyone compares and chooses the complete set of stats that they like the best. Commonly this will have all players with the same stats, but as with point buy, one set may be more attractive to a particular player due to build or prejudices. Effectively 4 players get 4 sets of stats from which to choose.
In a quick example, I have me, myself and I. We each roll 4d6 for our stats, dropping lowest.
me ms I
1: 16 13 13
2: 13 8 14
3: 14 11 8
4: 15 10 13
5: 11 12 11
6: 13 17 9
Me got the best rolls, hands down. Myself held a fair accounting, but I got handed some sucky dice, and just couldn't make the cut. In this set, it looks like everyone gets me's stat set; the entire column, not just the best roll for each row. Which happens to come out to...37-point buy, I think. You could have optimized the point buy better for your particular build, but there's nothin unplayable in those stats, IMO.
We like and use it, and hope that
some ALL of you will too.
-the end