Rolling instead of point buy... HELLO 17's across the board.


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Ok, first of all a forum location disclaimer... While in a way I am looking for advice, I feel this thread is better placed here to allow more discussion of the craziness that happens when you roll your stats...

I'm currently running a game with a single player who refuses outright to do point buy. I give 25 points in my games instead of the recommended 15, but he still is like we can play something else, if we are playing any incarnation of D&D, we roll or I don't play. Since he's the only player, I pretty much gave in.

SO, since he's the only player I am filling out the party with NPCs, and so far two of them I've rolled stats of (after racial mods)

Fiona Witchwolf Natural Weapon Ranger 17, 17, 17, 15, 15, 17 = 66
Patricia Witchwolf Lunar Oracle 14, 16, 16, 15, 15, 17 = 53

Which, is pretty much why I tend to not like to roll, but instead give generous points cause my d20's hate me, but my d6s love me.

Now, I've not seen what he's rolled yet but honestly, at this point I'm not sure it matters. With what I rolled for the NPCs even if he totally cheated and gave himself all 18s (which I know he wouldn't do... in past games I've seen him end up with 15 point buy and the other players like the stats I rolled for my twins and he was happy)

So, what would you guys do? Straight up stick with what I rolled, or should I assign the stats exactly how I see them concept wise which would be far lower than what I rolled either way?

Also, feel free to give your own stories of why you like or do not like rolling vs. point buy.

EDIT: Just as a "test" I went ahead and rolled the stats of the NPC I already had finished, and rolled 17 13 13 12 14 14 = 31 (which these stats are pre racial mods, I didn't assign them yet) Still over the 25, but not nearly as insane as Fiona and Patricia, but very much illustrates the disproportion!!!


If you're the DM, it's your table. Your player is going to take his marbles home if you make him point-buy but that doesn't mean you need to use the same method to generate any other statblocks. You can use the elite array, or point-buy as you see fit. The goal is simply to make the game fun.


True, but part of the reason I hate rolling is just for example, pretend Patricia rolled really badly... (just kinda making up stats I think look good for way of quick example)...

First reminder of Fiona's stats 17, 17, 17, 15, 15, 17 (natural weapon ranger)

Then Patricia say she rolled (lunar oracle)

10 12, 10, 12, 8, 14

So, given those stats... I'd need to up the CR to compensate cause Fiona is a BEAST with those stats... yet Patricia? Sure, she's an oracle but the stuff that is a challenge for Fiona will mop the floor with Patricia unless I completely arbitrarily say nothing attacks her, not to mention her 14 Charisma doesn't give her much in the way of save DCs. So, then if I DID do that, am I favoring an NPC (or even if she was an actual PC) by only having monsters attack the players with high rolled stats?

EDIT: Also, while my current example is a single player game being filled out by NPCs, overall my "discussion" is still extended to the standard many players games where let's say that Fiona and Patricia (with stats as in this post, not my OP) are actual players


I'd build your PCs with point buy and let him roll his. Is he going to care about that? Or even know?


Steve Geddes wrote:
I'd build your PCs with point buy and let him roll his. Is he going to care about that? Or even know?

Well, no he wouldn't except as I said in my last post, on an overall topic, what if it wasn't NPCs and was just players... what would you do if Fiona and Patricia were players?


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If they were rolled up by players, I'd let the stats ride. I think the furor over uneven stats at the start is more than a bit overblown. These character will tend to get an additional +1 or +2 over most of their compatriots' die rolls - and that's not that big a deal as far as I'm concerned.


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While it works better in games with more the one person.... I did see a good suggestion on the board once.

Everyone rolls stats, but anyone can use anyone elses stats.

So player 1 rolls 10 18 10 13 8 12

Player 2 rolls 16 14 14 15 13 16

Player 3 rolls 4 12 8 7 13 9 (dice hate this guy and we all have one liek this at our table)

Player 4 rolls 12 17 11 11 13 11

All 4 players could pick what stat they wanted to use. MOST would probably use player 2 stats, however some who really wanted a max casting stat could instead choose player 1's rolls. This lets the characters roll, and also allows them to be balanced one with each other.


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You're the DM; just set the NPCs' stats. It's not remotely cheating to tailor your campaign to the desires of you and your players.

Paizo Employee

Ughbash wrote:

While it works better in games with more the one person.... I did see a good suggestion on the board once.

Everyone rolls stats, but anyone can use anyone elses stats.

This is what we've done for our past two campaigns. It's worked brilliantly.

Everybody's rooting for everyone to roll well, nobody's jealous, it's more exciting than just plopping the array in, and it means people can't run ahead and do character creation without the group.

The last bit may be a disadvantage for some people, but I find everyone doing character creation together has served us much better and sharing rolls really reinforces it.

Cheers!
Landon

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

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Maybe it's just the folks I play with, but I've never experienced ability scores rendering a character totally dominant or useless. In my experience, class abilities make a bigger difference.


Landon Winkler wrote:
Everyone rolls stats, but anyone can use anyone else's stats.

I've never heard of this. It's bloody brilliant!

Scarab Sages

Charlie Brooks wrote:
Maybe it's just the folks I play with, but I've never experienced ability scores rendering a character totally dominant or useless. In my experience, class abilities make a bigger difference.

The problems is when you have MAD vs SAD classes and the difference between classes. You need much higher attributes if you want to play a Monk and be effective than you need for a Wizard.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Just an idea I've been fiddling with lately - once you've finished rolling your stats, add up all of the resulting ability modifiers. Fiona would have a total of +16 (4*3 + 2*2) and Patricia would have a total of +3 (2 + 1*2 + 0 - 1). With that in mind, you can set a baseline for rolls based on the point buy you'd allow for that campaign. Here's how I'd place them:

15 points = +5 base
20 points = +7 base
25 points = +8 base
30 points = +9 base

The reason I only increase the base by +1 at 25 and 30 points is simple - the higher your scores are the more costly it becomes to increase them. Adding another 5 points to a low point buy is simply more valuable than adding 5 points to a high point buy.

With this in mind, you can also set a maximum if you don't want your 15-points campaign to be derailed by someone like Fiona whose scores are simply too high for balance purposes. My campaigns use 20 points, for instance, so I'd allow my players to keep stats rolled to a minimum of +7 and a maximum of +9 if I were limiting scores. Keep in mind that rerolling stats because you were too lucky is not fun for players before imposing this limit.

This system allows your players to roll dice while preventing outliers like Patricia (whose bad luck I empathize with) and Fiona. In addition it allows you and your players to choose between point buy and rolls when building characters, ensuring that everyone is both happy and balanced.


On the topic of rolling stats, what my group does is we roll 4d6, and take the sum of the highest 3 for the attribute, and then reroll any attributes that are 11 or lower, so that everyone has at least a +1 in each ability (before applying penalties). Put a minimum on how low a random attribute can be, to prevent some unlucky players from being stuck with a lot of below average stats.

Still, it's possible, and even quite common, for players to end up with a lot of low stats, near the minimum, so after all 6 attributes are tallied up, we rule that the player can choose to reroll all 6 of them, or stick with what they've got.

I'm not sure this is the best way to do it, but I go along with it. I usually keep rerolling all of my stats until I get at least one 17 or 18 for my main stat.

Of course, this still leaves players open to the possibility of several 16+ stats, and it's technically possible to just keep rerolling until you get all 18s.

When it's my turn to DM, I'll probably rule that every time you reroll your 6 stats, one of the new stats takes a cumulative -1. This way players can't easily keep rolling forever until they get a few 17s and 18s, without seriously nerfing some of their other stats, which is similar to the point buy method, but still leaves the excitement of random chance, and a smaller range of possible stats.


AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
I'd build your PCs with point buy and let him roll his. Is he going to care about that? Or even know?
Well, no he wouldn't except as I said in my last post, on an overall topic, what if it wasn't NPCs and was just players... what would you do if Fiona and Patricia were players?

Then you run a solo adventure for the one that's willing to do point buy.

Or I suppose you could try playing cards. There's a card based method somewhere that allows some randomization with a fixed total stat value and a bias towards median values I think.


AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
I'd build your PCs with point buy and let him roll his. Is he going to care about that? Or even know?
Well, no he wouldn't except as I said in my last post, on an overall topic, what if it wasn't NPCs and was just players... what would you do if Fiona and Patricia were players?

If you've got multiple players, make them come to an agreement amongst themselves unless you've got a strong opinion. Then they live with it. None of this "roll your abilities, but if they suck keep doing it until they don't" softball stuff. And if they elect to roll and get crappy stats and you kill their PCs, that's the choice they made.


AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
I'd build your PCs with point buy and let him roll his. Is he going to care about that? Or even know?
Well, no he wouldn't except as I said in my last post, on an overall topic, what if it wasn't NPCs and was just players... what would you do if Fiona and Patricia were players?

I much prefer rolling, except I go even further and take the rolls in order (I dont care whether it's anything from 3d6 to 5d6, rerolling 1s and 2s). I personally take the view that if I'm going to advocate rolling I'm choosing the possibility of parties with disparate ability scores, so I'd accept them if they happened.

Granted, I've seen people focus on the positive side of rolling and then regret it when they get bad stats, so the issue of wildly differing PCs is definitely part of the pre-game discussion about what method to use - it should be more exhaustive than "Do we use pointbuy or rolling?"


I think it's ultimately a matter of personal preference.

I completely understand why PFS games use point buy. You can't cheat. There's absolutely zero question of whether you "actually" rolled those stats. You're, a vast majority of the time, playing with people you don't know, and anything that makes the GM's life easier at that point should be pursued vigorously.

In my game, players roll their stats. I tell them to roll three sets of stats, and each roll uses 4d6 with the lowest being dropped. They then pick the best set, and that's the scores they have to allocate as they wish (before racial modifiers, of course). I trust my players. It just isn't an issue. If a seat opens up and we bring a new player in, I ask them to roll their stats at their first session (or at the interview I have with them before inviting them into the group; if I'm inviting a stranger into my home, I'm meeting them in a public place beforehand). I've never had someone refuse.

I don't personally care for point buy systems. I think it forces "one trick ponies", where in order to be exceptional at one thing, you're mechanically forced to be mediocre (at best) at other things. It makes no sense that someone who's really strong may only be of average intelligence, or someone who's really quick can't also be really likable or have a strong, noteworthy personality. It doesn't always go down well, but reality check: in life there are some people who are just naturally better at things than others. There are those exceptional people who are really smart, athletic, charismatic and fast, who have a remarkable amount of common sense. They're uncommon by nature, which is the baseline for an adventurer. A commoner can't roll up some bat guano and sulfur, wiggle their fingers and expect to cast Fireball. A Wizard can. The typical reaction to most commoners in anything short of a large town (and one on a major trade route intersection at that; beyond that, we're talking small city or larger) to adventurers should be incredible caution, and a possible suspension of trade in the area to insure their local economy isn't blasted to pieces by the sudden influx of gold adventuring types are known to cart around. An accomplished commoner in a small town is living a rich life indeed if they see 100 gold in a year. An adventurer past 2nd or 3rd level doesn't blink twice at the expenditure of 100 gold in a single purchase.

This isn't an indictment of players who prefer point buy systems. If I'm looking to join a game, and the only game I can find uses point buy, then I have to decide what's more important to me: playing Pathfinder, or sticking to my guns on my personally preferred stat generation mechanic.


If I had more than one player the player would not dictate rules to me, but to answer the question if the rolling player rolled well, then I would allow the point buy player to have an equivalent point buy to whatever was rolled.


sk8r_dan_man wrote:

On the topic of rolling stats, what my group does is we roll 4d6, and take the sum of the highest 3 for the attribute, and then reroll any attributes that are 11 or lower, so that everyone has at least a +1 in each ability (before applying penalties). Put a minimum on how low a random attribute can be, to prevent some unlucky players from being stuck with a lot of below average stats.

Still, it's possible, and even quite common, for players to end up with a lot of low stats, near the minimum, so after all 6 attributes are tallied up, we rule that the player can choose to reroll all 6 of them, or stick with what they've got.

I'm not sure this is the best way to do it, but I go along with it. I usually keep rerolling all of my stats until I get at least one 17 or 18 for my main stat.

Of course, this still leaves players open to the possibility of several 16+ stats, and it's technically possible to just keep rerolling until you get all 18s.

When it's my turn to DM, I'll probably rule that every time you reroll your 6 stats, one of the new stats takes a cumulative -1. This way players can't easily keep rolling forever until they get a few 17s and 18s, without seriously nerfing some of their other stats, which is similar to the point buy method, but still leaves the excitement of random chance, and a smaller range of possible stats.

As a Gm I have each player roll 4d6 drop the lowest, rolled 7 times, drop the lowest total. Then the 6 preferred numbers are dropped where each player desires for stats. If all 7 are low (as happened for me with 3 3 5 7 10 11 12 on an unlucky Ninja) then the player can choose a point buy (25) instead. So far I have been the only player (8 of us for 4 different games now) to have to use the point buy. I am also the only player to get 2 18's before racials, mostly it is 8-15 so it seems to balance the need for rerolls very well, and optimizers can still choose a point buy, but there is no risk to rolling on game day with the rest of the party.

Plus for long games training and items can make everyone's abilities and HP max. And for short games players can work together to balance their parties deficiencies (as well as low stats helping provide characterization, maybe the low CHA fighter is really diplomatic, but his face is scarred and burned from battle).


AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:

quick example)...

First reminder of Fiona's stats 17, 17, 17, 15, 15, 17 (natural weapon ranger)

Then Patricia say she rolled (lunar oracle)

10 12, 10, 12, 8, 14

So, given those stats... I'd need to up the CR to compensate cause Fiona is a BEAST with those stats...

No, you don't. This is a logical error I see all the time in DMs. Just because one character is stronger doesn't mean the opposition has to be stronger.

Secondly, a large part of it relates to the characters chosen roles (I would say archetypes but Pathfinder has made that into its own mechanical term). If Patricia wanted to play a support caster, Fiona would make an excellent recipient.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'm sorry did someone say Fiona is now a rogue? :)

If rolling is a done deal, then I vote in favor of the everyone can use anyone else's roll.

Otherwise go for point buy. If you want heroic characters give em more....if you don't want dump stats, set minimums/average score to be met.

It's a great deal more easier to balance the campaign when everyone is on the same set of stats or points.

As the guy who played with a highest stat of 9 (and only one of those) in a '4d6 best 3' rolled game...it can get very challenging supporting the party.


No arguments there Rerednaw, having all negative modifiers would be virtually unplayable. (Although a synthesist summoner could sort of work... it would have no casting but could be somewhat playable, especially if the rest of the party weren't super high powered.)


AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
I'd build your PCs with point buy and let him roll his. Is he going to care about that? Or even know?
Well, no he wouldn't except as I said in my last post, on an overall topic, what if it wasn't NPCs and was just players... what would you do if Fiona and Patricia were players?

At the risk of sounding somewhat cross, to continue the hypothetical part, I'd imagine if you had the other players and he was still refusing to point buy, I'd let him leave. I'm very much in the camp of "I'm the DM, not you, so respect my decisions for character creation"

I started out with rolling in my first ever campaign, and refused to point buy, but I realized that it was easily the most balanced way to make a character and haven't gone back since that revelation.


Solidchaos085 wrote:
I started out with rolling in my first ever campaign, and refused to point buy, but I realized that it was easily the most balanced way to make a character and haven't gone back since that revelation.

Except it's really not.

More balanced than rolling dice sure, but there's nothing balanced about point buy. With rolls it tends to be the large gaps between high and low roll totals that stand out, but in Point Buy its an issue of character types.

With point buy and before accounting for racial bonus, you can be sure that SAD classes WILL have an 18 (unless you houserule around that) while the MAD classes can't afford an 18, and if you're using 15 point buy they may not even be able to afford a 16.

Easily the most balanced way to make a character is to hand out an array to the party to distribute as desired. I like high stat games myself, so my default array has been 18/16/14/14/12/10 before accounting for race, but I've also seen 16/14/13/13/12/10 or 16/14/13/13/12/10 used for lower stat games.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Solidchaos085 wrote:
I started out with rolling in my first ever campaign, and refused to point buy, but I realized that it was easily the most balanced way to make a character and haven't gone back since that revelation.

Except it's really not.

More balanced than rolling dice sure, but there's nothing balanced about point buy. With rolls it tends to be the large gaps between high and low roll totals that stand out, but in Point Buy its an issue of character types.

With point buy and before accounting for racial bonus, you can be sure that SAD classes WILL have an 18 (unless you houserule around that) while the MAD classes can't afford an 18, and if you're using 15 point buy they may not even be able to afford a 16.

Easily the most balanced way to make a character is to hand out an array to the party to distribute as desired. I like high stat games myself, so my default array has been 18/16/14/14/12/10 before accounting for race, but I've also seen 16/14/13/13/12/10 or 16/14/13/13/12/10 used for lower stat games.

I'm no rules expert, but if you were looking for balance, wouldnt the most balanced to be to hand out one array for SAD classes and a different array for MAD classes? (Or perhaps even finer gradations based on class?)


Getting down to that level of granulation COULD possibly work better (I haven't made any analysis myself), but I've found a fairly balanced array does a pretty good job as is.


Cheers.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
but I've also seen 16/14/13/13/12/10 or 16/14/13/13/12/10 used for lower stat games.

Not sure how I accidentally listed the same lower array twice, but I did.

The secondary one was supposed to be 16/14/13/12/10/8


My favorite PC that I have ever played rolled poorly on his stats 4/10/8/11/13/15. His low stats made him an interesting and fun character to play. Js.


AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:

Fiona Witchwolf Natural Weapon Ranger 17, 17, 17, 15, 15, 17 = 66

Patricia Witchwolf Lunar Oracle 14, 16, 16, 15, 15, 17 = 53

Which, is pretty much why I tend to not like to roll, but instead give generous points cause my d20's hate me, but my d6s love me.

I have a very hard time believing you rolled those stats. Did you use dice or some kind of computer program?

If the stats on this page are accurate (https://klubkev.org/~ksulliva/ralph/dnd-stats.html), then a person has only a 4.2% chance of rolling a 17 with 4d6 drop lowest. You rolled four of them. If any math experts out these want to figure out the likelihood of this occurring, I'd be interested to see.

Suffice to say without exact numbers, the odds of rolling four 17s and 2 15s with 4d6 drop lowest are astronomically low.

If such a thing occurred when I was rolling up an NPC (and it never has even in the past 20+ years), I would make that character a descendant of some epic hero or god. As that would tend to overshadow a PC, I would not make that NPC a regular companion of the PC.

As far as in general dice versus PB, I prefer dice. I don't like table top RPGs to turn into who can create the best character, which PB strongly encourages. The randomness of the dice mean that no player gets exactly what they want in a character's stats. Yes, this favors some classes over others, but I'm okay with that.


The logical statistics have almost zero bearing on what can come up in an honestly rolled set of 4d6 drop the lowest 6 times.

At the start of my first extended campaign as a player, everyone rolled their dice one at a time at the table under the supervision of a pair of co-gms. The chick who made a Druid rolled up 18, 18, 18, 18, 16, 16

After that everybody (co-dms included, as an experiment to make sure the dice weren't loaded) tried their hands at rolling sets of 4d6 with her dice and everything that came up was fairly normal.


Let the player roll 4D6 lose the lowest die and put a point buy min and max in place. If the player rolls too low or too high the re-roll. Since you are playing 25 pt buy set it 20-30.

That's how I do it. If the players want they can take 25 or roll. Typically the re-roll comes from rolling too low but the odd high stat character come ups up forcing a re-roll.


Tormsskull wrote:
AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:

Fiona Witchwolf Natural Weapon Ranger 17, 17, 17, 15, 15, 17 = 66

Patricia Witchwolf Lunar Oracle 14, 16, 16, 15, 15, 17 = 53

Which, is pretty much why I tend to not like to roll, but instead give generous points cause my d20's hate me, but my d6s love me.

I have a very hard time believing you rolled those stats. Did you use dice or some kind of computer program?

If the stats on this page are accurate (https://klubkev.org/~ksulliva/ralph/dnd-stats.html), then a person has only a 4.2% chance of rolling a 17 with 4d6 drop lowest. You rolled four of them. If any math experts out these want to figure out the likelihood of this occurring, I'd be interested to see.

Suffice to say without exact numbers, the odds of rolling four 17s and 2 15s with 4d6 drop lowest are astronomically low.

If such a thing occurred when I was rolling up an NPC (and it never has even in the past 20+ years), I would make that character a descendant of some epic hero or god. As that would tend to overshadow a PC, I would not make that NPC a regular companion of the PC.

As far as in general dice versus PB, I prefer dice. I don't like table top RPGs to turn into who can create the best character, which PB strongly encourages. The randomness of the dice mean that no player gets exactly what they want in a character's stats. Yes, this favors some classes over others, but I'm okay with that.

I have rolled similar stats more than once, and another guy I used to game with used to roll well, and yeah I actually saw him roll the dice.


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wraithstrike wrote:
Tormsskull wrote:
AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:

Fiona Witchwolf Natural Weapon Ranger 17, 17, 17, 15, 15, 17 = 66

Patricia Witchwolf Lunar Oracle 14, 16, 16, 15, 15, 17 = 53

Which, is pretty much why I tend to not like to roll, but instead give generous points cause my d20's hate me, but my d6s love me.

I have a very hard time believing you rolled those stats. Did you use dice or some kind of computer program?

If the stats on this page are accurate (https://klubkev.org/~ksulliva/ralph/dnd-stats.html), then a person has only a 4.2% chance of rolling a 17 with 4d6 drop lowest. You rolled four of them. If any math experts out these want to figure out the likelihood of this occurring, I'd be interested to see.

Suffice to say without exact numbers, the odds of rolling four 17s and 2 15s with 4d6 drop lowest are astronomically low.

If such a thing occurred when I was rolling up an NPC (and it never has even in the past 20+ years), I would make that character a descendant of some epic hero or god. As that would tend to overshadow a PC, I would not make that NPC a regular companion of the PC.

As far as in general dice versus PB, I prefer dice. I don't like table top RPGs to turn into who can create the best character, which PB strongly encourages. The randomness of the dice mean that no player gets exactly what they want in a character's stats. Yes, this favors some classes over others, but I'm okay with that.

I have rolled similar stats more than once, and another guy I used to game with used to roll well, and yeah I actually saw him roll the dice.

I've rolled stats like on the odd rare occasion. Typically I roll either really good or really bad so I prefer point buy.


What my group does is allow rerolls in extreme cases. We have the GM roll in front of us 4d6, drop the lowest, and allow the player to allocate wherever they want. Yes some players end up with a better stat pool but we make sure there's never someone with 5, 7, 7, 9, 11, 12. That person gets to reroll until he gets a workable pool of numbers.

To the OP, if you think Patricia and Fiona are too powerful then you can reroll them as you see fit. They are NPCs. If they were PCs then use my reroll method. If he's still average, then give him some better equipment or something. There are plenty of way a character can be rebalanced.


What method of rollng do you use? 17s across the board are that unlikely that I would suspect weighted dice even if I saw it rolled.

Let each player roll 3 sets and choose one of them or take a bonus roll but stock wih it. Gauss/law of averages should have you covered mirror less and mitigate wild discrepancies in player stats somewhat.

Also google "don't fetishize balance" for an enlightening blog post from the Alexandrian.


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Thanael wrote:
What method of rollng do you use? 17s across the board are that unlikely that I would suspect weighted dice even if I saw it rolled.

I've personally seen 4d6 drop the lowest 6 times produce 18/18/18/18/16/16, and experimented with said person's dice (amongst other people at the table) and proven they weren't loaded.

We all chalked it up to beginner's luck.


Thanael wrote:
What method of rollng do you use? 17s across the board are that unlikely that I would suspect weighted dice even if I saw it rolled.

Right. And when I hear stories about it I assume people are FoS.


I suggest in this case letting the player roll stats and use his stats as an array for any character you make.

In the game I'm currently playing I let each player roll stats, then I rolled a set of stats. I took each players stats down as an array and let players pick which array they wanted. There were 3 viable stat arrays to chose from, the 4th just sucking.


Eh, let it go. It's a single character campaign. He's gonna need all the help he can get.


Tormsskull wrote:
Thanael wrote:
What method of rollng do you use? 17s across the board are that unlikely that I would suspect weighted dice even if I saw it rolled.
Right. And when I hear stories about it I assume people are FoS.

It happens with my group all the time, even if I have them use my dice. As for method, 4d6 drop the lowest, reroll 1 and 2. Granted, that we reroll 1 and 2 does tend to get it higher but if you don't then you can end up with a 3, and honestly I hate dump stats immensely. So, the possibility of a 3-6 score? No. 9 is my absolute minimum this way.

But, as for even other dice rolls being high all the time, I had a player when I used to play GURPS who rolled criticals (3-4 on 3d6) ALL the time and I knew his dice weren't weighted because I was there when he bought the dice at our FLGS.

Now, I have been with players who DO lie about what they roll, but I tend to not play with them anymore.


AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:
It happens with my group all the time, even if I have them use my dice. As for method, 4d6 drop the lowest, reroll 1 and 2.

Sure, that's like someone saying they got a royal flush in 5 card stud, and someone else saying they get them all the time, only they play that 2s, 3s, and 4s are wild.

I.E., if you change the premise, of course you're going to change the expected outcome.


Tormsskull wrote:
AbsolutGrndZer0 wrote:
It happens with my group all the time, even if I have them use my dice. As for method, 4d6 drop the lowest, reroll 1 and 2.

Sure, that's like someone saying they got a royal flush in 5 card stud, and someone else saying they get them all the time, only they play that 2s, 3s, and 4s are wild.

I.E., if you change the premise, of course you're going to change the expected outcome.

Which is why I prefer point buy... that way everyone is equal and you don't have some person that rolled all 3/6/9/13/12/7 vs. someone who just happened to get that uber lucky all 17 and 18s (which I have seen happen with 3d6 no rerolls too, just it's extremely rare) because you don't allow rerolls. It's like, damned if you do, damned if you don't...

But, even if I said reroll 1, 2, and 3 or didn't allow rerolls neither changes the point of the post, which is what to do when there is a disparity between character stats that one doesn't get with point buy.


Bardarok wrote:
My favorite PC that I have ever played rolled poorly on his stats 4/10/8/11/13/15. His low stats made him an interesting and fun character to play. Js.

Good for you.

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Meanwhile my characters 10, 16, 10, 10, 13, 10 made him boring as hell.


Ughbash wrote:

While it works better in games with more the one person.... I did see a good suggestion on the board once.

Everyone rolls stats, but anyone can use anyone elses stats.

So player 1 rolls 10 18 10 13 8 12

Player 2 rolls 16 14 14 15 13 16

Player 3 rolls 4 12 8 7 13 9 (dice hate this guy and we all have one liek this at our table)

Player 4 rolls 12 17 11 11 13 11

All 4 players could pick what stat they wanted to use. MOST would probably use player 2 stats, however some who really wanted a max casting stat could instead choose player 1's rolls. This lets the characters roll, and also allows them to be balanced one with each other.

Dice hate me and I am that guy at the table


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TriOmegaZero wrote:
Meanwhile my characters 10, 16, 10, 10, 13, 10 made him boring as hell.

Really? I find that low stats make characters less interesting. 7 CHA means your character will rarely contribute meaningfully to RP. 7 INT means you have no skills. 7 CON is obviously unplayable. 7 WIS means you're gonna get screwed by magic all the time. 7 DEX means no initiative or reflexes. 7 STR could slide for a caster but it's kinda stereotypical.

My 14 CHA Half-orc barbarian was way more interesting because I could say something occasionally and be heard. Combined with 12 Int, it meant I could be more than a big, dumb Half-Orc but still be a strong barbarian too.

Now you could RP a low stat interesting I suppose. But is it really fun to have to be surely and unpleasant all the time? Or be mousy and shy all the time? I remember having to play a 7 CHA Magus and it was miserable. I was lore monkey who had to have the Rogue do all the talking. Everyone keep cracking jokes about her appearance. I didn't want my character to be surly or mousy so must mean that my character is ugly as sin and has such a flat chest that she has "concave boobs." They were only teasing but it was still annoying. Even a 10 CHA would have fixed that. She didn't have to be the most gorgeous woman on the planet but even average is better than so ugly Cthulhu loses SAN when he looks at you

I'm not asking for 17s across the board but even average stats can help stop a character from being pigeonholed. An INT 10 character can occasionally have a good idea but never outshine the wizard. An INT 7 character should have trouble reading Dr. Seuss.

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Larkos wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
Meanwhile my characters 10, 16, 10, 10, 13, 10 made him boring as hell.
Really? I find that low stats make characters less interesting.

Yeah, that's what I said. Maybe getting past first level would have helped, but a 1st level monk with only bonuses in Dex and Wis was pretty blah all around.

Liberty's Edge

My standard point buy policy is 25 point buy, no stat above 16, no stat below 8, and only one below 10. All before Racial mods.

I find this results in heroic and well-rounded characters with maybe one low stat (which can be interesting...it's when you get a lot of them or they get too low that there start being problems).

Additionally, it makes their high stats on par with highly optimized 15 point-buy characters (making the use of published material easier), and favors MAD characters slightly over SAD ones. It's generally served me very well and I highly recommend it.

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