Ok normally i have my party have a witness to roll their stats. It dosent have to be me and it keeps them honest. well one of my players lives two hours away so i let him roll them up alone and he showed up with an 18 17 17 16 18 16. I have seen people roll these stats before but this particular person rolls crappy pretty much all the time. I'm almost certain he cheated but i dont know weather to confront him or not. i like having him in the group and dont want to piss him off. What should I do?
point but is really the best way to keep this from happening (pg16 of core rule book)
Ok normally i have my party have a witness to roll their stats. It dosent have to be me and it keeps them honest. well one of my players lives two hours away so i let him roll them up alone and he showed up with an 18 17 17 16 18 16. I have seen people roll these stats before but this particular person rolls crappy pretty much all the time. I'm almost certain he cheated but i dont know weather to confront him or not. i like having him in the group and dont want to piss him off. What should I do?
Tell him:
"Damn - normally I wouldn't interfere with the God of Dice, but in the same way that you can have crappy rolls and have to roll again, this guy is so darn good he's going to make the rest of the party look like they suck. Can you dice him again here please?"
Then you are not accusing him of cheating, but at the same time letting him know that if he is it will not be tolerated.
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My rule on rolling stats is that it has to occur at the table with at least one person paying attention. Ostensibly so we can cheer them on ;)
If the party wipes and we're going to start a new session with rolled stats, I have them roll stats before they leave and I write them down so I have an idea what I'm working with.
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Just be upfront. "I am sorry but that is just too high to believe you will need to reroll"
"are you saying I am a cheater?"
"no but your results seem improbable and I think I am within my rights as DM to require a reroll."
Stay away from saying he is a cheat say you would like to maintain the roll with witness rule and require the reroll.
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Tell him:
"Damn - normally I wouldn't interfere with the God of Dice, but in the same way that you can have crappy rolls and have to roll again, this guy is so darn good he's going to make the rest of the party look like they suck. Can you dice him again here please?"
Then you are not accusing him of cheating, but at the same time letting him know that if he is it will not be tolerated.
+1
Don't make it about cheating, make it about party dynamics.
What I do for people in my games that are long distance from the game, or who can't make a 'build character' meeting, is roll their stats for them and send them to them in e-mail. That way, if they roll bad enough I'm going to make them reroll, I do it myself. If I roll super duper, oh well, they lucked out.
I played with someone who always rolled stats like that right in front of everyone. It's not that big of a deal. The character will be tougher at low levels but it will balance at higher levels.
I guess if you don't play high levels then it is a big deal though.
It was just pointed out to me that no one ever brings this up during the Point Buy vs Roll The Dice arguements. TOZ's comment about 'party dynamics' is a winner even with the Point Buy system.
I once rolled up a character with stats similar to that for another player. The DM doubted me, but I assured him I had really rolled that well. Also, it was a warning because the girl I rolled up the paladin for is infamous for her luck at the dice. I pity her DMs. Which sometimes is me. She is almost incapable of rolling below a 17 on a d20.
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I once rolled up a character with stats similar to that for another player. The DM doubted me, but I assured him I had really rolled that well. Also, it was a warning because the girl I rolled up the paladin for is infamous for her luck at the dice. I pity her DMs. Which sometimes is me. She is almost incapable of rolling below a 17 on a d20.
I play with her polar opposite. The guy is lucky to roll above ten on most nights if he ever does. But he is killer at risk though.
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My characters roll pretty normally (though perhaps a little de-cenetered, tending towards extreme), but the moment it becomes a clutch situation the dice gods decide I'm unworthy and curse me with epic unluck. I twice rolled 4 nat 1s in a row. Four. That happens one in every 160,000 attempts, and I can assure you I have not been in 320,000 clutch situations in D&D.
On topic: I agree that it should be approached from the "party balance" point of view if only to avoid even implied accusation.
Ok normally i have my party have a witness to roll their stats. It dosent have to be me and it keeps them honest. well one of my players lives two hours away so i let him roll them up alone and he showed up with an 18 17 17 16 18 16. I have seen people roll these stats before but this particular person rolls crappy pretty much all the time. I'm almost certain he cheated but i dont know weather to confront him or not. i like having him in the group and dont want to piss him off. What should I do?
Have him do it by webcam if you don't trust him. You know your players better than I do so only you know if he would cheat.
I don't know what kind of game you run, but if you think it'll affect game play then have everyone re-roll. If you don't think it'll affect it, let it slide. Some folks are just lucky that way. I know a guy who will consistantly roll multiple 18's. We would not let him roll his own dice after a while since we watched his rolls and they were legit, we figured loaded dice. But no matter what dice he has, he comes up with multiple 18's. I personally watched him roll 5 18's in a row, followed by a 17 on my dice. Now when we play everyone just accepts that he will have awesome stats.
One other option you have if you do not mind running a supped up party is to let the other players use the same numbers.
When we roll for stats at the table we try and do it as a group. Anyone can choose to ditch their rolls and use someone else's. While this can make for a much tougher group... at least they are the same across the board and the DM can set challenges to meet them. It allows the fun of rolling while keeping parity.
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Tell him:
"Damn - normally I wouldn't interfere with the God of Dice, but in the same way that you can have crappy rolls and have to roll again, this guy is so darn good he's going to make the rest of the party look like they suck. Can you dice him again here please?"
Then you are not accusing him of cheating, but at the same time letting him know that if he is it will not be tolerated.
+1
Don't make it about cheating, make it about party dynamics.
Dabbler and TryO have much wisdom here.
I doubt it's cheating simply because it's too obvious (though that may be what he's going for). If you're really serious about cheating in this situation you don't give yourself all 18s, you give yourself (maybe) 2 18s and some 14s or something similar. High enough to be cool but unlikely that the DM will force a reroll.
Personally I would go with the option of letting the rest of the group use the stats if they so choose. It means he's not punished and gets to play whatever awesome character he had in mind if he wants, but at the same time if he cheated he'll get to see that it's not going to give him an advantage at your table.
NOTE: it may look like I've though through cheating a little too much, however my groups exclusively use point buy, and cheating in an RPG is silly anyway, who are you trying to beat?
What should I do?Nothing.
I agree. Life's too short to worry about such. If he showed up with all 20's or some such, then yeah, that dog would be out of the hunt. We fudge our rolls a bit toward the higher side, ourselves, but never over the class/race limits.
Have someone witness his rolls, or roll for him.
As a DM, feel free to roll for him if he can't get a witness, but don't expect him to be happy with an average or worse roll. Every player wants something to make them feel special, and a shiny stat is one of those things, but if he feels he could have rolled better using D4's then he'll never be happy.
I've rolled an 18 18 18 18 18 16 before, but only after I practiced flipping a single die until it always came up 6 (onto a tilted, open book at that). Afterwards I could honestly say I rolled my character from 1 set of stats...
Another time I built a character, wrote down the stats I'd want to have (or more accurately rolled unsupervised), then took a critical look at the char and calculated how much I could pare those stats down and still make the character work as designed (which was a surprising amount lower). To my surprise I ended up rolling my best stats to date once I had a witness. But if I hadn't rolled those stats, I could easily have made that char work with the much lower stats.
I do like the idea of rolling at the table and as a group. My first group rolled stats and combined them to make a 6x6 grid of stats, then each person picked a row, column or diagonal and made that their character's stats (no swapping of order, though you could reverse the entire order). It made for a very balanced party, and nobody could complain that they rolled much worse than someone else. If someone is absent, you can always email them the block to pick from.
I'm sure this has been said but unless the other players are grumbling I'd say either let him have his high stats and give your players the option to boost their own stats or have him re-roll or lower the stats to something like 18 16 16 14 12 10 to keep them awesome while not so great that they overshadow the other players. As someone who once rolled stats that are almost that high(four in the 16-18 range and the other 2 above 13) on an online dice roller, it's no fun having a character that is the best at everything. I personally dropped a few of my overly high stats to more average levels and enjoyed the character more after that.
As a DM one of my players rolled 2 18s and a 17 at the table and none of the others rolled above a 16 so I let the other players drop a stat of their choice for an 18 to compensate, and they all were happy with this.
What should I do?Nothing.
+1
Well, if the player gets crappy rolls at the table then the high scores are probably not that problematic to begin with, I'd imagine. If anything, they might be offsetting his horrible string of luck.
Besides, believing someone is cheating because they typically have bad luck seems like pretty weak evidence. If, however, this player has shown signs or previous inclinations towards cheating, that's another matter entirely.
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For these kinds of situations I usually use this handy dandy website. All in all, it's not really about not trusting someone. It's more on the lines of keeping everyone to the same standard. But there is always that one exception, such as a two-hour drive.
I Have to agree with everyone on the opinion that explaining the situation as a party dynamics thing. I truly think that's the next best option in this case.
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My rule on rolling stats is that it has to occur at the table with at least one person paying attention. Ostensibly so we can cheer them on ;)
If the party wipes and we're going to start a new session with rolled stats, I have them roll stats before they leave and I write them down so I have an idea what I'm working with.
We do it the same way. It doesn't take long to roll stats.
I also think you should do nothing.
He may or may not have cheated (though I doubt it, too obviously suspicious), but you say he nearly always rolls badly, so… The chance of him outshining the rest of the group is small and why not let him have a little ‘win’ for once? Failure is only interesting and fun up to a point. Furthermore, you wouldn’t ask someone to reroll their awesome stats if there was a witness to the dice rolls, so the whole ‘group dynamics’ BS is gonna be pretty transparent.
I once rolled up a character with stats similar to that for another player. The DM doubted me, but I assured him I had really rolled that well. Also, it was a warning because the girl I rolled up the paladin for is infamous for her luck at the dice. I pity her DMs. Which sometimes is me. She is almost incapable of rolling below a 17 on a d20.I play with her polar opposite. The guy is lucky to roll above ten on most nights if he ever does. But he is killer at risk though.
I used to play with one of my friends with HORRIBLE luck! Back in 2nd Edition, he had an elf ranger with those weird cohorts they got back then. One was a dwarf thief named Skraan. In his first fight ever, he rolled, he rolled 2 natural 1s!!!! We ruled he fell on the ground, his dagger hit him in the butt, and his hand axe landed right in front of his face, cutting off his beard!!! He was a well established NPC, so it was particularly hilarious/humiliating.
Anyways, no one will play Risk with that guy, either, ever since he cut one of the dice in half!!!!!
He has some rage issues.....
Anyways, I'm usually pretty good with skill checks, but mediocre at best with attack rolls. In fact, my chaos gnome dragon shaman character has picked up enough gear (he just hit 11th) that he almost never uses a weapon combat....he uses Boots of Stomping, ring of the ram (OK, ranged touch), his breath weapon, bracers of repulsion, alchemist fire, etc. etc., and only once in a while remember her has morningstar of stunning.
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Another option would be to defer to group majority decision with the players and let them figure it out amongst themselves. After all, it's the other PC's that are in danger of being outshined, not the DM for creating a difficult challenge for which he has unlimited resources and no restrictions for which to do so (to a degree). And ultimately it's the other players who run the risk of being upset about it, so let them handle it :)
If I roll stats it's always in front of the dm (and require my players to roll them in front of me).
I do this for 2 reasons. First rolling stats is fun, I dont want others to miss out on the highs and the lows of it. And second, I dont want the potential joyous moment of rolling really good stats to be marred by the potential for mistrust. It just isnt worth it. There are too many ways at this point between web cams and online rollers, recording it with your darn cell phone, or any other way, to share the moment, it just isnt worth it not to.
Ok normally i have my party have a witness to roll their stats. It dosent have to be me and it keeps them honest. well one of my players lives two hours away so i let him roll them up alone and he showed up with an 18 17 17 16 18 16. I have seen people roll these stats before but this particular person rolls crappy pretty much all the time. I'm almost certain he cheated but i dont know weather to confront him or not. i like having him in the group and dont want to piss him off. What should I do?
This is why I do think using a point buy system is better, you get what you want to spend in the areas that count for your character & it cuts down on cheating. No doubt he cheated he just kept rolling till he got what he wanted, his stats are not fair to the party, have him reroll or use point buy for the party, the later will be easier than saying he cheated. I been gaming D&D for about 28 years I never started with such good stats.
I twice rolled 4 nat 1s in a row. Four. That happens one in every 160,000 attempts, and I can assure you I have not been in 320,000 clutch situations in D&D.
One of our gaming group lost his D20 future character the same way. I was away that week to my eternal regret as normally he's so lucky I'm convinced he's sold his soul to the god of dice.
Back before we started using points buy I would tend to get lucky with my stat rolls and the rest of the group didn't mind as I would spend the rest of the campaign rolling so low for everything that I might as well just be there to carry everyones gear and make the tea :(
In a D20 Modern Game, we had to de-fuse a bomb, but none of us had Disable Device, so we had to call our superiors for advice. They said "Cut the blue wire, not the red wire," but we mis-heard and attempted to cut the red wire....and we rolled a natural 1, so we cut the wrong wire, so we missed the red wire, cut the blue wire by mistake, and saved the day!
Why be competent when you can be really really lucky?
just let him play with those stats, he would make an awesome multiclass characters like eldrtich knight or mystic theurge, if he does that he wont really cut into the space of characters who stick to one class and the power levels will average out.
just tell him with stats like that he needs to multiclass
who cares what his stats are, cheating just ruins his own game play
one of these days im going to play a character with all 8s, just to proove it can be done.
too many people think its all about the stats.
one of these days im going to play a character with all 8s, just to proove it can be done.
too many people think its all about the stats.
Back in the days of 2nd edition a friend rolled up a really, really lousy character that couldn't have done anything to contribute to the party. He had 1 stat high enough to stick into dex to qualify for gnome illusionist, and multiclassed that with cleric. Even rolling percentile on every single spell to see if they would fizzle (he had very low casting stats), with minimum spells from either class, he ended up the most effective character in the party.
Point buy removes this issue.
one of these days im going to play a character with all 8s, just to proove it can be done.I don't think you will. :)
does anyone remember the dark sun rules pack?
I played a theif with an 8 dex...it was the best theif i ever played...he fat , lazy , did nothing, did i mention he was fat and lazy?
good fun...
lousy adventurer tho. (pure role play fun)
now just for fun im going to right now roll 3d6 (no dropping ones no 4d6) and im going to play this charcter IN serpents skull tonight...
ready:
7, 13 (i had TWO sixes dang!),15,13,12,7
not a bad character ( i totally thought id do way worse...this wont really prove my point)
but lets make him half-orc
str 17 (+2 race)
dex 12
con 13
int 7
wis 7
chr 12
fighter? barbarian? doesnt matter thats a decent character.
lets take mr, bumble the guy with all 8s;
lets make him...an elf
str 8
dex 10
con 6 (ouch!)
int 10
wis 8
chr 8
think ill be a rogue.
sure hes neg -1 to hit and damage, but...he will still be an effective rogue.
it's not all about the stats guys
I bet you won't play an all 8 character. :)
if i do you owe me a bestiary 2...deal? how long do i have to play him for? we are in serpents skull, just about to start the 3rd book (tonight)
dont think i can play that elf rogue, and not even get killed?
Im going to find me a character sheet now...
LOL...
i have horrendous stats or id play him as a court bard for humorous effect, but hed never get a single spell off!
+1What should I do?Nothing.-1
It may be good advice but with no explanation as to WHY you should do nothing, its almost a worthless waste of bandwidth. If it had a little more value, it would actually be worthless. As it is, it falls short of that.
This is one of those things that just shouldn't be over-thought, it will take care of itself. Giving explanation wont change that it will most likely just cause the OP to over think it. So in my opinion your posts are more wasting bandwidth then mine.
Just something to think about before telling another poster your better then them. I post explanations when I deem them necessary, it is my opinion VS. your opinion so there will not be a winner. This is not a rules question
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The odds of rolling that stat array are almost nil. The player was either exceptionally exponentially lucky or they are being dishonest.
As for balancing, anyone who says that an exceptional stat array is not inherently unbalancing has never been a D.M..
My group has gone to point buy... yes it does not let you achieve some character randomness, but when you play in a group for three years, and One member of the group is exceptional, unfortunately, it does not allow the other players to share the same degree of spotlight. The randomness should be developed through the uniqueness of the system, with traits and feats, as well as the 'Pathfinderized' version of classes, allows all players to have a unique character without unbalancing the game.
Just my opinion.BRAX.
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Do nothing.
1: It doesn't matter in the end. If he's a really good player, he could abuse it a bit, but ultimately, his actions in game should reflect in the world. If he's killing things left and right, the NPCs should plan to neutralize him. If he's a bad player, it's self-balancing already.
2: Going back on established rules is often a sign of mistrust or overreaction. Players unable to trust the DM is a major problem. By saying it's okay at first, and then saying it's not okay right before the game starts is bad form, and causes friction. Overreaction leads to bad house rules as the DM and players do not examine the facts.
For next time, either do point-buy, or insist on in-person rolls. It should not affect character creation too much.
The odds of rolling that stat array are almost nil. The player was either exceptionally exponentially lucky or they are being dishonest.
As for balancing, anyone who says that an exceptional stat array is not inherently unbalancing has never been a D.M..
My group has gone to point buy... yes it does not let you achieve some character randomness, but when you play in a group for three years, and One member of the group is exceptional, unfortunately, it does not allow the other players to share the same degree of spotlight. The randomness should be developed through the uniqueness of the system, with traits and feats, as well as the 'Pathfinderized' version of classes, allows all players to have a unique character without unbalancing the game.
Just my opinion.BRAX.
im going to have agree here, we always have one guy who no matter what make killer spotlight stealing, campaign ending characters and it always seems to be an issue of 22 dex or 22 strength, that just tips it over the edge.
I like point buy or 3d6 re reroll 1s... keeps the 18s away (usually)