Very poor stats can cause issues, but it is highly unlikely with my prefered rolling method.
You probably detailed this before, but posts can get lost to someone while reading a lot of other posts. What is your rolling method? One of the other DM's loves rolling in my group, but we have one player that always rolls badly so it may help out.
Very poor stats can cause issues, but it is highly unlikely with my prefered rolling method.
You probably detailed this before, but posts can get lost to someone while reading a lot of other posts. What is your rolling method? One of the other DM's loves rolling in my group, but we have one player that always rolls badly so it may help out.
Each player rolls 3 sets of stats, 4d6 drop low, and picks the set they like the most. We will reroll sets that are obviously terrible, like the occasional 7-8-8-9-10-12 if the other 2 are not that great, but that is entirely a GM call.
Each player rolls 3 sets of stats, 4d6 drop low, and picks the set they like the most. We will reroll sets that are obviously terrible, like the occasional 7-8-8-9-10-12 if the other 2 are not that great, but that is entirely a GM call.Very poor stats can cause issues, but it is highly unlikely with my prefered rolling method.
You probably detailed this before, but posts can get lost to someone while reading a lot of other posts. What is your rolling method? One of the other DM's loves rolling in my group, but we have one player that always rolls badly so it may help out.
Ugh, I'm not sure I want to figure out the point-buy equivalent or the probabilities on that type of a system.
I might as well mention this again, as it may be relevant:
Here's a method that's random and also comes out to the same number of points (counted linearly).
Take a deck of standard playing cards. From the deck, fetch cards 4 to 9 from two suits, say spades and hearts.
Method 1:
Shuffle the hearts and lay them out face down in a row. Shuffle the spades and lay them out face down, one on each pile. This creates six pairs. Turn the pairs face up. Assign the totals of each pair to your ability scores.
Method 2:
Place the hearts face up in order, according to your ability scores. Shuffle the spades and lay them face down, one on each pile. Then turn the spades face up and total the pairs in order to determine your ability scores.
As an optional extra step to either method, after assigning the pairs to ability scores, the player may swap the position of any two cards of the same suit.
Each player rolls 3 sets of stats, 4d6 drop low, and picks the set they like the most. We will reroll sets that are obviously terrible, like the occasional 7-8-8-9-10-12 if the other 2 are not that great, but that is entirely a GM call.Ugh, I'm not sure I want to figure out the point-buy equivalent or the probabilities on that type of a system.
According to my Monte Carlo simulation, the mean is a 28.75 point buy, with a standard deviation of about 9 points.
Each player rolls 3 sets of stats, 4d6 drop low, and picks the set they like the most. We will reroll sets that are obviously terrible, like the occasional 7-8-8-9-10-12 if the other 2 are not that great, but that is entirely a GM call.Very poor stats can cause issues, but it is highly unlikely with my prefered rolling method.
You probably detailed this before, but posts can get lost to someone while reading a lot of other posts. What is your rolling method? One of the other DM's loves rolling in my group, but we have one player that always rolls badly so it may help out.
LOL, great minds think alike. I did this in my last campaign, although I prefer the 4d4+2 from a mathematical standpoint, all my players were kind of old school and so I just did 4d6 drop lowest and roll 3 sets.
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I am just curious on what peoples opinions are. Which would you rather have for character creation; Point buy or 4d6 drop the low? Also, why?
As I said, just curious.
Point buy, for the same reasons you gave: nobody gets screwed.
We do 25 (or 28 with the addition of the Appearance attribute) and it still doesn't feel like enough. :)
Well the way it worked in 1st and 2nd was that you had to have a decent score in your "Prime Requisite" to even take the class, and a 16 or greater garnered you a 10% XP bonus. That was the main boon that higher stats gave you until you got to thet very high scores. For instance, a strength of 15 gave you zero bonuses to hit or damage. 16 gave you a +1 to damage. 17 gave you a +1 to both hit and damage.
With that kind of system, a fighter with a 12 strength and a fighter with a 16 strength were not dramatically different. Same for the other classes and stats. In 3rd edition onward, the specific numbers became much more important because a 16 gave a huge bonus over a 13, particularly when you consider that the bonus is often amplified by using your weapon two-handed, various feats, and so on.
This isn't true though, for the very reason you mentioned, and one other.
For starters, you got extra experience, which is a pretty big deal.
Secondly, when there's almost no modifiers and monsters have 3-4 HP, then +1 to damage and hit is a huge thing.
I play regular with a group of people and, believe it or not, they prefer rolling dices (I even give them incentives like a bit more points to spend) yet they think rolling is better o.O?
The group I've been playing with lately came up with a new system that everyone seems to like. We start with a slightly-boosted elite array (15, 15, 14, 12, 11, 10), then assign them to the various stats and add racial bonuses. Then we roll a d6 to determine one stat at random that will be raised. For that stat, we roll one dX, where X equals 18 minus the current value, and add that amount to the existing stat.
(For example, if the stat was a 12, we'd roll a d6 and add the d6 roll to the 12.)
If the stat that gets raised is already a 17, it simply raises to an 18 with no dice roll needed. If the stat to be raised has received a racial modifier of -2, then X equals 16 minus the current value instead of 18.
This system allows us to build a character concept the way we want it (as a point buy system), but also injects some randomness into the characters (like dice rolling).
An unexpected side benefit is that the randomly raised stat has been incorporated into the background of some of the characters. A player whose wizard has an 18 strength (he assigned a 10 to strength, but then rolled an 8 on his d8) has made his character a member of a philosophical sect that believes the body must be improved along with the mind in order to attain a balanced ideal of perfection.
I am just curious on what peoples opinions are. Which would you rather have for character creation; Point buy or 4d6 drop the low? Also, why?
4d6, because, in my experience, randomization at character creation is fun. It's the same reason I use randomized treasure and why the GMG is so perfect for me - randomization is fun, predtermined odds aren't. Also, I've had a couple of people change their minds about playing with us when they discover we use a dice-based method, usually with the complaint that it's "unfair", so it's become a good screening method.
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Man, how did I not post in this thread when it was active?
Let you share my remedy.
Each player rolls xd6, whatever your favored generation scheme is, once.
The top six scores (if more than six players, drop the lowest until you have six, if less, have the DM add rolls) become the set for every player, arranged as they like.
If this is too much of a departure for you, have each player roll their own sets, and then the group decides which to use. If a player finds a different set more useful to his character (MAD vs SAD) he can select that one with group approval.
There. You now have randomness, but no player should have stats horribly out of whack without the group being aware and approving of it.
Our group is old school. We like rolling better. The randomness of rolling can influence what character we play. That is part of the fun for us.
We're all old enough to still remember how excited you were to roll a 17 so you could play a paladin. Or if you rolled a decent set of stats, a ranger. Classes used to have stat minimums to even play one.
It's stuck with us over the years. 4d6 drop the lowest seems to produce 20 to 25 point buy characters with a few people rolling better.
We tried point buy at one point because of the stat imbalance of rolling... but it just left a poor impression. Everyone had perfectly placed and optimized stats. That was dull, like cookie cutter wizards or whatever. Besides some of my most memorable characters had either really low or really high stats in a way you can only see by rolling. Like my long lived elven sorceress with her unimpressive 1 Con stat. I love organic characters so when I rolled a set of stats that included a 14 at the high end and a 3 at the low end, I decided to let the dice fall in order. The other players were convinced I was trying to kill my character off quickly so they did everything they could to keep her safe while adventuring. It was a blast playing with a group of guys who all acted like over protective big brothers. I was knocked unconscious a lot but never died. And she retired at the end of the campaign at an impressive 16th level.
We roll 4D6...
And then we decide the character concept.
This is nice, and makes people try to move away from the min-max procedure.. :)
"I didn't like the way I bought my stats because it seemed too cookie-cutter."
It does sound funny but its true.
If I'm die rolling and i have an extraneous 13 lying around for my sorcerer, i'm not giving up that much tossing the 13 into int and having an unusually smart sorcerer. If i'm point buying that 13 int as opposed to a 7 is a difference between starting with an 18 and a 20. The cookie cutter takes on its shape for a reason.
Min, I just have to point out my amusement that your first three sentences read like this to me.
"I didn't like the way I bought my stats because it seemed too cookie-cutter."
It does sound funny when you put it that way. But you are also missing the point. It wasn't just me placing optimal stats, it was everyone. If you had two wizards, barbarians, or whatever at the table they would have identical stats. It was basically guaranteed that you would have a maxed out primary stat and dump stats that didn't affect your build. When you roll on the other hand you are NOT guaranteed a maxed out anything. If you get lucky then fine but you can still have fun even when you didn't get lucky. The rolls shape the concept. It becomes unusual to see two identical builds. The typical high stat of a 4d6 drop low character is a 16. Which becomes an 18 when you add race. The typical high stat of point buy is 20 unless the build requires MAD.
Now my player hate point buy as they always want higher stats than point buy allows. I let them roll for CoT AP and they basically walked through that AP with ease due to their high stats. I find high stats for homebrew games works just fine as I am designing the encounters. If I have AP that I'm running I don't want to have to modify all the encounters to make them a challenge.
This.
My group LOVES rolling and they LOVE epic characters. They consider a character without at least an 18, 17, and 15 (before racial modifiers) as borderline unplayable and no fun. We do 4d6, reroll 1s, drop lowest, do two columns, and pick the best.
I ran CoT with them and it was like a warm knife through butter. I also noticed, as the DM, that overpowered stats tend to diminish the importance of buffs from wizards and bards and screws with the balance of CMB and CMD.
I DON'T like it. But they won't change. I can manage it in my home brew campaigns, but rolling breaks adventure paths. I quite CoT after the third book because I had a hard time keeping it balanced. It took more work to keep it challenging then just making my own homebrew campaign. They are now level 8. I started them on Slumbering Tsar at level 7 to provide some good challenge.
They really seem to like me as a DM. The only other DM is a better DM then me, but I think I have cemented myself as a good DM. After this campaign I am going to refuse to DM unless we do 20 point buy and/or 3d6 two columns. They can do 2 columns of 3d6, but if they don't like it they can use the 20 point buy as a safety net.
18s will become special again.
Right now one character has a level 8 barbarian who started as human with 18, 18, 16, 15, 12, 10. He put his +2 human stat on the 16 and placed it in Wisdom. Eventually he died and was reincarnated as a gnome and got +2 con but didn't loose the wisdom. So now he has an 20, 18, 18, 15, 12, and he has placed his two points in Con which is now 22.
I joke you not...he has rolled with my dice and every level he has rolled between 10-12 for HP. He is ridiculous. With toughness he has over 150 HPs, 18 dex, throws javelins from a distance on a mount, and outshines everyone. He did take one dip in Cleric, but rolled an 8 for HP.
However, Slumbering Tsar is MEAN and he thinks he is invincible, so I am pretty sure his days are numbered. He charged 8 rangers by himself and took 30+ arrows that only dropped his life 30% before everyone else took out the rangers, but that tactic will get him killed in a some of the other encounters. *bwahaha* I can't wait!
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Point buy is usually the more practical way to go. Any of these complicated "random" systems that are meant to simulate Point Buy might as well use Point Buy or an array.
That said, everyone should try a high randomization system once in a while, just to see what it's like. At some point, I want to take a break from my current game and run an old-school 1st Ed game: roll 3d6, in order!
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A complicated random system that simulates Point Buy? Don't mind if I do...
For those that want to roll stats, but want them to fit with Point Buy balance, try this one out!
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The basic premise is that each roll you make is dependent on how many points you have remaining. Whatever your roll is, removes (or adds) points from your remaining points. The odds on the roll is intended to include the entire range of stats in point buy (7 to 18, etc), up to how high your remaining points would allow.
Chart: What to Roll
17+ points (7-18): 1d12 + 6 (avg 12.5)
13-16 points (7-17): 2d6 + 5 (avg 12)
10-12 points (7-16): 3d4 + 4 (avg 11.5)
7-9 points (7-15): 4d3 + 3 (avg 11)
5-6 points (7-14): 1d8 + 6 (avg 10.5)
3-4 points (7-13): 2d4 + 5 (avg 10)
2 points (7-12): 1d6 + 6 (avg 9.5)
1 point (7-11): 2d3 + 5 (avg 9)
0 points (7-10): 1d4 + 6 (avg 8.5)
If you finish with points leftover, you may add them to whatever stats you rolled to increase them (point buy style).
The result is that you gain stats you didn't completely plan out (might not get that 18, etc), but it's entirely balanced next to normal point buy.
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Of course, this is so complicated (it uses d3s?) that I doubt I'd ever actually use this in practice.
However, if anyone wants to try it out and see what they think.. it might give the best of both worlds ("mostly" random stats that simulates the balance of point buy). It should give a completely different "feel" than standard point buy creation.
Enjoy!
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Right now one character has a level 8 barbarian who started as human with 18, 18, 16, 15, 12, 10. He put his +2 human stat on the 16 and placed it in Wisdom. Eventually he died and was reincarnated as a gnome and got +2 con but didn't loose the wisdom. So now he has an 20, 18, 18, 15, 12, and he has placed his two points in Con which is now 22.
Well, you see, this is exactly what I hate with dice rolls.
Most people don't want randomization, they want the potentially ridiculous stats you could have if you rolled well. Except that it is all but random : you roll, find if this is cool or not, then often you complain or look sad because your stats suck compared to your fellow players, then you ask to reroll, and since you rerolled then one other will ask for it too, and finally everyone is happy and no stat is below 14, etc.When we started to play under 3.0 then 3.5, we always had characters looking like 18/16/17/13/14/15, and oh god it was awful when we compare our actual games to these old ones.
When we began Pathfinder and changed the DM, one of the first things I suggested him was to use 15-point buy stat generation. It was a shock, but a good one. Two sessions later though, he decided it would be better if we used 20-point buy instead. Since then, we sticked to 20 point-buy with rules limitating obvious, sticky mini-maxing, and we are having a blast.
I don't understand people who feel like their character is blank because it bought it's stats, or epic because he got ridiculous rolls. Your character is not it's stats, it's what it did in the campaign, it is it's background, it's roleplay, it's deeds. Having stats "built" in accordance to your character isn't weird, and optimized 15 or 20-point buy is already being better than any average NPC you'll ever meet, including most NPC bosses.
There isn't any problem with two fighters having 18 strength in the group, it isn't like playing is a perpetual penis size contest and a character is defined only by an array of stats.
And note that when I say that, I'm not denigrating this method of stat generation. Each group has it's own ways of playing, and ours is certainly not better than others's.
You guys with all your 18s must be using broken dice or bizarre stat roll methods that allow for top heavy characters. That guy with the three 18s is a once in a lifetime occurrence if you look at probability. Most of the time you get a higher top stat with point buy. That's why optimizers favor point buy. Sure you can frequently score over or under the the point buy limit by rolling. But if you're over that means you probably have more stats in the 12 to 14 range than the point guy person would have bought.
Keep in mind when comparing dice rolling methods to a "comperable" point buy is that a pure statistical analysis of dice rolling leaves out the fact that you can drop the bottom 10% or so of bad stat arrays produced by the dice.
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Optimizers value dice rolls. 4d6 is nice and all, and makes balanced characters relatively (22-23 points), but only if you don't allow all the rerolls.
Realistically, most players with bad stats will beg for a reroll. Even semi-decent like (just generated in Excel):
16-11-15-9-12-5
Would be considered "suicide bait" for many. They want all the benefits of being able to be lucky and get "god" without the drawbacks of the system.
Even if they do play them they go ahead and optimize. That 5 is either int or Chr-bound. It's the same thing, but far more sporadic.
Having done the point buy, for time and fairness sake I'd never go back. When running home campaigns I do prevent stat dump (some people hate stat dumping, and I don't want them disaded; plus it brings the power gamers I play with a little more in line :)). After all, cheats like the 7 Int for a 2 skill class or Chr for anyone not Directly Chr-based is like free points.
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I find the best way to avoid dumping in point-buy is to just flat out ban lowering scores below 10 for extra points.
Dumping a stat isn't always made for evil minimaxing reasons.
While our group limits stats under 10 (usually, the lowest stats in an array we have is "7/9", "8/8", "8/10", or "8/9"), you need both a good reason and to understand there is some kind of trust put into you so you don't abuse the system for a petty +1 in some rolls.Our group's barbarian had 5 in Intelligence and Wisdom. He was -and still is- the best character I ever played with, without even talking "THOG NOT UNDERSTAND. THOG HITS THINGS"-like. And it's roleplay is awesome, so we know that the trust we put in him and the exceptional favor we made by allowing him to play his character was well-earned.
Optimizers value dice rolls. 4d6 is nice and all, and makes balanced characters relatively (22-23 points), but only if you don't allow all the rerolls.
Realistically, most players with bad stats will beg for a reroll. Even semi-decent like (just generated in Excel):
16-11-15-9-12-5
Would be considered "suicide bait" for many. They want all the benefits of being able to be lucky and get "god" without the drawbacks of the system.
Even if they do play them they go ahead and optimize. That 5 is either int or Chr-bound. It's the same thing, but far more sporadic.
Having done the point buy, for time and fairness sake I'd never go back. When running home campaigns I do prevent stat dump (some people hate stat dumping, and I don't want them disaded; plus it brings the power gamers I play with a little more in line :)). After all, cheats like the 7 Int for a 2 skill class or Chr for anyone not Directly Chr-based is like free points.
Every optimizer I met preferred point buy without a doubt. They are the ones who chafe the most when they roll poorly. Many power gamers love rolling because every so often they get lucky and can build something exotic but too expensive for point buy. Only immature players whine about rolling too low. Fortunately I haven't gamed with immature players in a while.
PS: Those stats you rolled are good. I doubt many people would ask for a reroll, even if the 5 was a bit unlucky. You got two great stats a 16 and a 15, that's a true keeper.
As far as placement goes... that would depend on the concept wouldn't it. And a good roleplayer would have fun with his placement of the 5 and 9 just as much as the 16 and 15.
Pointbuy is far easier to optimize than the fickle hand of fate.