Let him keep the stats, if he usually rolls badly then all having high stats will do is put him on an even footing with the rest of the group.
|
-1It 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.
He didn't ask "What should I do and why?" He asked "What should I do?" Hmm, that reminds me of the Lebron commercial...maybe I should have used that angle. Anyway, I think others have given a good 'why'.
|
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
I never said I was better than you. I said the one-word response was worse than useless. You, as a person, were never attacked in any way.
And I think you've proven my point. "Nothing. Let it work itself out. Don't overthink it." is SO much more useful than the original one-word response (even if I think its still incomplete).
In this case, its not your opinion vs. my opinion since I actually agree. No one was looking for a winner but an opinion backed by an explanation is infinitely more useful than no explanation at all... or only providing them when you deem necessary. That seems to equate to "because I said so."
I'll deign to explain why I agree with doing nothing, though...
I've been in this position twice. Not bad for 30+ years of gaming but still two times too many. Both times, I tried to do the 'keep it to myself' thing and it was ok. Then I blew it. In both circumstances, I thought it was safe to bring up the issue. It ended badly... not just losing a player but actually damaging friendships. In retrospect, it was dumb. No one's perfect. You can overlook your friends' other shortcomings (I have a friend who spills everything!) and just prepare for them in the future (strategic drink placement has become an art more than a science). If I have a friend who I suspect is cheating, at this point, I'd put it in the same category and do nothing.
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?
Turn it the other way. Give EVERYONE in the party those stats to work with. That way everyone is even with him. Sure it will be ultra heroic but hey, you can always TPK them if you need to.
Or go to a point buy system. Avoids the entire problem.
OR allow him to have the stats. He may actually have rolled them. Generally people don't allow folks they do not actually trust to roll remotely in any case.
OR allow him to have the stats. He may actually have rolled them. Generally people don't allow folks they do not actually trust to roll remotely in any case.
I've been at a table where one guy legitly rolled 18 18 18 17 17 17 on 4d6, dropping the low (he made one heckova monk). Seeing it in play, he was too much stronger than any other character, maybe 10% more likely to succeed in some areas, but that's about it. Past meeting prerequisites and slightly altering skills and saving throws there isn't a whole lot to having a mod or two higher in non-primary attributes. So when I had people make characters I had them roll at home if we were rolling. As far as I'm concerned there is no reason to cheat at a game that you win by having fun, if a player needs to cheat to feel important, so be it, as long as they have the decency to try to hide thier cheating like the shameful habit it is. Anymore, when my group rolls - if we don't point buy, to make sure that everyone is on a fair playing field I have everyone roll 4d6, drop the low, and put it in a pool with the other's rolls (we usually have six players which makes conviently six rolls), and everyone uses the same pool. Everyone gets to roll, so everyone's happy, and nobody has an innately more powerful block than anyone else. When we were short two players and had only 4, a similiar method worked. First stat, everyone roll a d6, drop the lowest in the group, there is the first roll, repeat.
|
The main time I have trouble with cheating is when it occurs at the table. I've seen people roll and follow the die with their hand, twisting it slightly when it doesn't land where they want. The way they did it was subtle, but I could tell what they were doing and started forcing them to re-roll (or use the real result, if I caught what that was). Eventually it became so problematic that me and the other main DM agreed that we needed to force him to DM and break him* as punishment.
* Two people who know the system inside and out and how to take advantage of 'sounds legit' things in order to out-run the speed of plot. That's never fun for a new DM. And we did break him. Somewhere around the time we managed to out-wit a pit fiend into becoming our b&~!+ (at ~lvl 10) he seemed to finally give up.
A few things that came to mind for me:
1) What would you have done if he came to you with the reverse stats (3 4 4 5 3 4)? Would you still think he was cheating? The odds remain the same. It's unlikely he would play it but would you still think he's cheating?
2) Have you verified all his d6 rolls to see if this is a common problem or do these rolls fit fine into a standard bell curve over a long time of rolling d6s? Just because he rolled well a few times doesn't mean that he is always going to be rolling well. There is a point when he should get those numbers.
3) Is it really going to be a problem in the game? How much more powerful will he be compared to the rest of the party? If he is going to be much more powerful you have a few more options:
a) Have him reroll
b) Give everyone else a few bonus points to play with
c) For every 5 points he is above the party's point buy grant an additional trait (or feat for two traits).
Personally, I'd just let him keep his rolls. I haven't actually seen the high stats be very disruptive.
I've see a few efforts over the years to decompose the core D20 mechanics of character construction, allowing an "ECL+? equivalency" for such things as extra feats or spell-like abilities. Makes one wonder if such an analysis could be used to give an ECL modifier for exceptionally high or low ability scores.
Seems sensible that a group could allow each player to select from an array of point buy options, if each array carried an ECL modifier where appropriate.
I physically observed a friend of mine roll straight 18's on standard rolls (4d6 drop lowest). It happened the one time, has never repeated (though our group does end up with a fairly high stat set, not having at least one 18 is nearly unheard of), and at the time it absolutely floored me. I mean, it's theoretically possible, if statistically improbable, but sure enough, one 18 after another, six separate times.
The dice weren't even rigged! I continue to hate and envy the man, as the best I've managed was a stat set of quad 16's and twin 13's. Now that was a fun bard, let me tell you.
So yeah, it's possible to roll supremely high or supremely low. Just really, REALLY unlikely.
And I really hate point buy. The point thresholds in the book are about 10-15 points too low for my taste...
the sad thing about that all 18s character is its probably dead, never made it to 5th level right? as lucky as he was with 4d6 he got hosed on d20 am i right? huh huh? i bet i am.... karma!
I just want to say something, back in 1st ED, remember how RARE paladins and monks or even rangers were supposed to be, because of their stat requirements (3d6 was the rule of the day back then)
EVERYONE cheated, just so they could make a paladin, paladins were rare! IF you wanted to make a paladin you had to have that 17 Chr, (which did nothing else for you in 1st ed) but magically all people who wanted a paladin had it, never saw a LG fighter because they didnt make the CHR requirement...
just back then a 17 was the same as a 12 today...
I just want to say something, back in 1st ED, remember how RARE paladins and monks or even rangers were supposed to be, because of their stat requirements (3d6 was the rule of the day back then)
EVERYONE cheated, just so they could make a paladin, paladins were rare! IF you wanted to make a paladin you had to have that 17 Chr, (which did nothing else for you in 1st ed) but magically all people who wanted a paladin had it, never saw a LG fighter because they didnt make the CHR requirement...
just back then a 17 was the same as a 12 today...
Actually straight 3d6 was not the recommended way of creating characters by 1e AD&D, though as I wasn't playing, or alive, at the time the rules were first printed I could imagine people using 3d6 as a holdover from OD&D instead of the 1e recommended methods. The 1e DMG has 4 methods listed, with 4d6 drop lowest being the first method recommended and others include rolling 12 3d6's and keeping the best 6, rolling 3d6 six times per ability, and keeping the highest roll for each ability, and rolling 12 full sets of 3d6 in order and keeping whichever of those 12 sets makes the best character.
The DMG specifically also says that the DM should allow the players to create a viable character, though it doesn't quantify that for the DM, so a perfectly reasonable interpretation of that is that a DM should allow a character to have the minimum stats they need to qualify for a character class.
I just want to say something, back in 1st ED, remember how RARE paladins and monks or even rangers were supposed to be, because of their stat requirements (3d6 was the rule of the day back then)
EVERYONE cheated, just so they could make a paladin, paladins were rare! IF you wanted to make a paladin you had to have that 17 Chr, (which did nothing else for you in 1st ed) but magically all people who wanted a paladin had it, never saw a LG fighter because they didnt make the CHR requirement...
just back then a 17 was the same as a 12 today...
Actually straight 3d6 was not the recommended way of creating characters by 1e AD&D, though as I wasn't playing, or alive, at the time the rules were first printed I could imagine people using 3d6 as a holdover from OD&D instead of the 1e recommended methods. The 1e DMG has 4 methods listed, with 4d6 drop lowest being the first method recommended and others include rolling 12 3d6's and keeping the best 6, rolling 3d6 six times per ability, and keeping the highest roll for each ability, and rolling 12 full sets of 3d6 in order and keeping whichever of those 12 sets makes the best character.
The DMG specifically also says that the DM should allow the players to create a viable character, though it doesn't quantify that for the DM, so a perfectly reasonable interpretation of that is that a DM should allow a character to have the minimum stats they need to qualify for a character class.
you must be reading revised, reprinted editions of the DMG, the original players handbook and DMG hand entirely different front covers than most people are aware of, and there was 3d6 in the players handbook...the dmg had a list of alternate ways, where were, essentially, just different ways to roll up alot of characters at once, and choose the best character.
4d6 drop the lowest came into 1st ed around time unearthed arcanna was printed, but alot of people have taken to calling that 1.5
I was actually saying that the presumed bell-curve isn't as reliable as it sounds lol. All over the world billions and billions of dice are being rolled. There are bound to be several dozen (or hundred) thousand 'statistically impossible' rolls, and it's totally possible those can gravitate towards the same relatively small sampling of people.
There's nothing wrong with the bell-curve - you just aren't guaranteed to be in the middle of it all the time! Until you roll the dice, you just don't know, and after you roll them, you have no guarantee about the next roll because statistics have no memory.
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?Well i'm sorry but you can't call him out saying that because he rolls crappy he is cheating; it could be the other way around he really rolled crappy but he deosn't roll like usauly. If you don't trust him, have the DM have all the characters reroll their stats to be fair befor you play.
i think the whole idea was so they could play right away and characters were pre-made, instead of wasting a game meeting making characters.
|
|
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.
+1
Actually straight 3d6 was not the recommended way of creating characters by 1e AD&D, though as I wasn't playing, or alive, at the time the rules were first printed I could imagine people using 3d6 as a holdover from OD&D instead of the 1e recommended methods. The 1e DMG has 4 methods listed, with 4d6 drop lowest being the first method recommended and others include rolling 12 3d6's and keeping the best 6, rolling 3d6 six times per ability, and keeping the highest roll for each ability, and rolling 12 full sets of 3d6 in order and keeping whichever of those 12 sets makes the best character.
The DMG specifically also says that the DM should allow the players to create a viable character, though it doesn't quantify that for the DM, so a perfectly reasonable interpretation of that is that a DM should allow a character to have the minimum stats they need to qualify for a character class.
you must be reading revised, reprinted editions of the DMG, the original players handbook and DMG hand entirely different front covers than most people are aware of, and there was 3d6 in the players handbook...the dmg had a list of alternate ways, where were, essentially, just different ways to roll up alot of characters at once, and choose the best character.
4d6 drop the lowest came into 1st ed around time unearthed arcanna was printed, but alot of people have taken to calling that 1.5
Could be, the 1e DMG I have is copyright 1979 and has a picture of a tall, red demon holding a sword in one hand and a girl in the other while a wizard and fighter-looking guy are facing off against him. And as I don't have a 1e player's handbook I'm sure you are right and the 3d6 method was the stats method that was listed in there.
Anyways, that had nothing to do with the original topic anyways, so I shouldn't have gotten into it. Any updates on the situation Dwarven Insight? Did you take any of the advice in the thread, and if you did how did it work out?
When was the last time you saw a person roll 3,3,3,4,4,5. Never happened. Same odds for rolling the opposite.
The player is lying. period.
Anyone actually believing that is delusional or unwilling to accept it because they want to cheat too.
I've seen someone roll nothing higher than a 6 on a d20 on an entire night of D&D where there was AT least more than a hundred rolls.
Probability can be a real thing.
Also. I've seen 6 8s before. And 6 18s.
|
|
When was the last time you saw a person roll 3,3,3,4,4,5. Never happened. Same odds for rolling the opposite.
The player is lying. period.
Anyone actually believing that is delusional or unwilling to accept it because they want to cheat too.
I've seen someone roll nothing higher than a 6 on a d20 on an entire night of D&D where there was AT least more than a hundred rolls.
Probability can be a real thing.
Also. I've seen 6 8s before. And 6 18s.
I saw someone roll 3 18s and 3 3s. Since their total mod was +0 they were allowed to reroll, but they chose not to and made a 18 str, 3 dex, 18 con, 3 int, 3 wis, 18 cha character. This was in 3.5, though, so the charisma was useless.
