A model makes most sense, because this way the “dynamic field” will be available from other templates referencing the page as well. The tutorial video embedded above is a good start.
The Panel sidebar or one in the frontend? If the latter, a model is the way to go.
You can create an actual field “finalscore” and decide from your model method whether to calculate the score or whether to return the fixed score depending on the value of the field (if it is empty or contains a value).