So one member of the party decided they wanted to roll for stats and the other two didn't bother to oppose that decision (the fourth was missing at the time) so I said "Hey, sure, roll for your stats." Simple 4d6d1 method. From my end of the table things are pretty fine, but the players are less excited. In terms of point buy, three members landed around 20 points, while the fourth landed somewhere past 50. The lower members are having trouble picking up everything they wanted with their random stat arrays and are worried that the fourth's high everything is going to have them cowering behind him for the entire game.
Does anyone else use a rolling system and have to deal with imbalance like that or does everyone use point buy to avoid this problem in the first place? Should I switch to a point buy system even now that the rolls are out and on the field, rolling back the rolls? Should I just provide some extra points to the weaker members, or should I also rein in the powerhouse? Or is everything just fine as it is?
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Yeah, issues like this are why point buys are better/more reliable. At the very least you should make the 50 pointer roll again until he gets something reasonable.
That is part of the fun with Rolling stats. Someone will be Superman and someone Green arrow. There is Lots of things that imbalance the game and stats is one of them. I
I suggest you go with it this time and then decide how it was when you have tryed it out. Pehaps it turns out to be no problem at all.
If the 3 not so happy guys cant live with that tell then they can remake for 20 points. But let the guy that rolled good keep his uber stats.
If the guy that wanted rolled stats is one of the concerned crowd tell him to think over his next suggestion, as well.;)
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Yeah, issues like this are why point buys are better/more reliable. At the very least you should make the 50 pointer roll again until he gets something reasonable.
Yes let him reroll til he get no stat above 8. That will teach him not to be lucky at your table.
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Personally I got rid of rolling for stats to avoid this exact problem.
As a player it sucks to roll poorly (or even decently) while someone else rolls nothing lower than a 16 and then you end up feeling more like a sidekick.
My suggestion is yes, apologize and tell them you didn't realize it would be a problem and that you want to use point buy. If you want to be generous give a 25 point buy.
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Or you can give the other players the same roll as the higher roll.
This is an issue with rolling stats.
The person who rolled highest, were they the one asking to roll in the first place?
What I do with rolling stats is either convert the highest rolled into a point buy number for everyone or give everyone the same high array.
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Yeah, issues like this are why point buys are better/more reliable. At the very least you should make the 50 pointer roll again until he gets something reasonable.
Yes let him reroll til he get no stat above 8. That will teach him not to be lucky at your table.;)
...I'd let him reroll a bad stat spread, too.
Of course, the point would be moot because I'd have an array that everyone uses to begin with.
One method is to have everyone roll for stats but have the players vote on whose set of rolls to use. Then every player has the same overall stats but can assign them to ability scores as they wish.
Yeah, issues like this are why point buys are better/more reliable. At the very least you should make the 50 pointer roll again until he gets something reasonable.
Unfortunately, with rolling, who decides what is/isn't reasonable? I mean, the whole process is excessively arbitrary. What specific combination of scores amounts to "reasonable"?
Do you use point buy as a guideline? "This is over a 25 PB build, so re-roll"? Well you might as well skip the middle-man and just use point buy. Literally the only reasons to roll ability scores are...
A) To sort of pick your class for you.
B) The hope to roll absurdly high.
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This is why I don't use the roll method anymore.
Last time I tried some people got really bad rolls, and that's easy enough to fix; I just said everyone who's not happy can rebuild for 15 or 20 points. So basically you get point buy with the chance to roll better than that.
However, occasionally you get those extreme rolls. If someone got 25pts while others got 20 I'd say don't be jealous. When it's 50/20 though, I think that's too extreme. However, there's not really any fair way you can downgrade someone's points.
Since I don't know any fair way to make someone tone it down if they roll too well (and because "roll too well" is so arbitrary), I'm sticking with point buy.
I think it's fine for someone to be luckier than other players now and then, but I don't want the imbalance to be so long-lasting, which is what rolling for abilities does.
Yeah, issues like this are why point buys are better/more reliable. At the very least you should make the 50 pointer roll again until he gets something reasonable.Unfortunately, with rolling, who decides what is/isn't reasonable? I mean, the whole process is excessively arbitrary. What specific combination of scores amounts to "reasonable"?
Do you use point buy as a guideline? "This is over a 25 PB build, so re-roll"? Well you might as well skip the middle-man and just use point buy. Literally the only reasons to roll ability scores are...
A) To sort of pick your class for you.
B) The hope to roll absurdly high.
Oh don't get me wrong, point buys and arrays are objectively better at giving everyone in the party a fair shake than any means of dice rolling (with the possible exception of the above suggested "roll the dice and then everyone uses the same spread" which is still basically an array). The only people who really benefit from it are those who are expecting to and do roll significantly higher than the other players, which in my view is an absolutely terrible way to approach a team base RPG and I'd rather not have that kind of person at my table.
At our table we use a roll 4d6 drop the lowest, rolled 7 times drop the lowest, place stats where they want.
If the scores are not acceptable players can choose to point buy at the tables rolled average.
We also have a unanimous vote to see if the entire table agrees with ALL the rolls, if not, start over. Generally if someone has an absurdly high roll they are willing to change it to match the table (or they will never get any loot as everyone tries to catch up with gear). So far I am the only player to roll 3 4's ever (I made the mistake of using my GM dice who hate players), so I used point buy and it worked out.
Maybe your table should vote on a total reroll?
One method is to have everyone roll for stats but have the players vote on whose set of rolls to use. Then every player has the same overall stats but can assign them to ability scores as they wish.
How does that work? Can you explain in more detail?
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I suspect this is how it works:
4 players, each roll 4d6, 7 times, drop lowest.
so you might have the following arrays
17,15,12,13,9,10
13,12,11,13,7,8
18,12,18,12,18,10
15,14,13,12,14,10
Or something, whatever.
Each player then votes on which array they think is best. In my example there might be one really good one that you think everyone will vote on. So the votes are tallied and the winning array is the one everyone uses.
Ah, I see now... I read over the 'every player has the same overall stats' bit.
So one member of the party decided they wanted to roll for stats and the other two didn't bother to oppose that decision (the fourth was missing at the time) so I said "Hey, sure, roll for your stats." Simple 4d6d1 method. From my end of the table things are pretty fine, but the players are less excited. In terms of point buy, three members landed around 20 points, while the fourth landed somewhere past 50. The lower members are having trouble picking up everything they wanted with their random stat arrays and are worried that the fourth's high everything is going to have them cowering behind him for the entire game.
Does anyone else use a rolling system and have to deal with imbalance like that or does everyone use point buy to avoid this problem in the first place? Should I switch to a point buy system even now that the rolls are out and on the field, rolling back the rolls? Should I just provide some extra points to the weaker members, or should I also rein in the powerhouse? Or is everything just fine as it is?
Rolling dice is something I enjoy more for the fun of messing with the numbers, and trying to pick a class that will work best with the stats I roll. 1 or 2 good ability scores: Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, or another SAD class. 4 or 5 good ability scores: Fighter, Monk, Warpriest, or another MAD class. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it with more experienced players.
With new players, I prefer a point buy. If people really want to roll stats, I'd advise the use of a dice pool mechanic, 24d6, take 18, or something similar.
Yeah, issues like this are why point buys are better/more reliable. At the very least you should make the 50 pointer roll again until he gets something reasonable.Yes let him reroll til he get no stat above 8. That will teach him not to be lucky at your table.
Yes, it's better to punish the other 3 players by making them be green arrow, then try and keep all of the players at an even playing field in a team-based game.
Oh don't get me wrong, point buys and arrays are objectively better at giving everyone in the party a fair shake than any means of dice rolling (with the possible exception of the above suggested "roll the dice and then everyone uses the same spread" which is still basically an array). The only people who really benefit from it are those who are expecting to and do roll significantly higher than the other players, which in my view is an absolutely terrible way to approach a team base RPG and I'd rather not have that kind of person at my table.Yeah, issues like this are why point buys are better/more reliable. At the very least you should make the 50 pointer roll again until he gets something reasonable.Unfortunately, with rolling, who decides what is/isn't reasonable? I mean, the whole process is excessively arbitrary. What specific combination of scores amounts to "reasonable"?
Do you use point buy as a guideline? "This is over a 25 PB build, so re-roll"? Well you might as well skip the middle-man and just use point buy. Literally the only reasons to roll ability scores are...
A) To sort of pick your class for you.
B) The hope to roll absurdly high.
Back when we used to roll (we did it, but we have seen the light of truth and it is both beautiful and liberating), I was helping a friend roll up her first D&D character, a bard, while everyone else was making a character. My poor buddy Brandon ended up with crappy rolls, so bad that he had to re-roll them according to the PHB. Meanwhile, he bard rolled 4 17s and 2 18s, using 4d6-drop.lowest method. Half-way through the rolling, I was like "guys, look at this", and finished rolling.
If anyone had brought me the sheet, I'd have been certain they were the most obvious cheaters in the history of cheating, but what could I say? I was the GM, I'm the one that rolled them, right there in front of everyone.
I'm not sure what the statistical probability of four 17s and 2 18s is, but damn, it's gotta be low.
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I'm not sure what the statistical probability of four 17s and 2 18s is, but damn, it's gotta be low.
.079%
@Guardianlord: if you get to point-buy up to a BP equal to the average
BP of the people who rolled, won't you get better-than-average scores? No uneven stats for example?
Yes the scores can be a little uneven, but we are talking differences of +1 generally, which is easy to modify with gear, even at low levels. The thing about the point buy to average, is that no one who point-buys will be better than a roller, or worse than a roller overall.
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@Guardianlord: I don't really see that. Suppose we have three players, two of whom rolled;
A) 9, 15, 8, 14, 15, 14 = 21BP, +6 total modifier
B) 12, 17, 15, 13, 10, 16 = 35BP, +9 total modifier
You get (21+35)/2 = 28 BP, what can you make?
C) 8, 10, 10, 14, 14, 16, 16 = 28BP, +9 total modifier
Seems fair enough? But no class is so MAD that B is actually better than C's stats. And A is pretty screwed. Suppose instead that we take BP = BP of lowest roller that doesn't reroll.
D) 7, 10, 10, 14, 16, 16 = 21BP, +6 total modifier
Again D doesn't seem to have much advantage over A, but D has +3's to play with for the abilities most important to his chosen class, while A has only +2's.
So one player is going to have generally better modifiers, it's not really that big a deal. It won't be enough to have the other PCs cowering behind the luckier one. Assuming they arrange their stats reasonably well, he probably won't be more than a point ahead (if at all) in their primary role's main jobs.
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That is part of the fun with Rolling stats.
This is a definition of 'fun' with which I am totally unfamiliar.
The only way I've ever seen this 'work' is to have everybody roll, then everybody agrees on one set of stats for everybody to use.
I would also suggest instead of using 4d6 drop low seven times, instead roll 24d6, drop the six lowest rolls, and select six triplets from the remaining 18 numbers to form your six stats.
So if your get an array of 2,2,4,2,5,1,6,5,4,1,6,5,2,3,4,3,6,4,4,3,6,2,4,3 (just rolled that with random.org), you drop both 1s and the 4 2s leaving you with 4,5,6,5,4,6,5,3,4,3,6,4,4,3,6,2,4,3. Then choose groups of 3 of those however you want (Could get stats of 18,16, 13, 12, 10,8 or something more balanced if you want.)
If you want to do a party array, you could also give the party a single die array as above.
My primary gaming group still uses the roll 4d6 drop the lowest. However we then pool our rolled stats to the GM and the entire group choses one array to use. This group likes doing this because even campaigns that we have run before can be vastly different due to the variety of stat arrays that can happen when rolling. The other group that I game with goes by a strict 20 or 25 point buy depending on the campaign. This group prefers the even balance that point buys can provide.
It should be noted that my primary group does only homebrew campaigns while my secondary group only plays AP and other "official" campaigns.
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Doesn't matter as much as people think it does to be honest.
At best you are going to get a few extra hit points or a slightly better will save but all in all the difference is very minor.
My rules are simple. Roll 4d6d1 until you get three valid sets between 20 and 40 point buy. Choose one.
Problem solved.
I tried to GM for my friends who are used to a roll system. They complained that the 25pt buy was too limiting.
A bit of a harsh judgement, I admit, but my first thought would be that they only want to roll so they can cheat. I can't imagine finding 25 points 'limiting'.
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Huh i guess my gaming experience is totally different. I ENJOY the randomness of possibly having a bad ability score. In my head it makes the character more interesting. I have played a fighter with a 17 strength and a 6 intelligence. Basically the party pointed him at something and told him to kill it. We had a blast. I had an illusionist with a 18 int and a 5 wisdom. He would always make the most grandiose illusions he could because he thought they were impressive. The point buy system seems generic now that the groups i have run with all use it. But that is just my opinon. <shrug>
Edit: to the op's point i would encourage the players with less stats to role play the difference between the chars. "you have the most strength and the biggest sword .... you go first" type thing
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The thing that's funny about your anecdote is that 17 strength and 6 intelligence is pretty close to the common recommendation for Fighters anyways. I often times dump int just because I can't bring it up high enough to make my skill points matter without sacrificing something more important (generally wisdom).
How about you try a Fighter where you didn't roll anything above a 14.
I honestly cannot comprehend the mind of anyone who would roll stats, see that they suck, and just resign themselves to playing as someone else's sidekick. I can roleplay a sidekick, but I want to still, y'know, actually be competent and useful. More Harley than Robin.
Huh i guess my gaming experience is totally different. I ENJOY the randomness of possibly having a bad ability score. In my head it makes the character more interesting
And you can't do this with point buy ... why?
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oh you can do it with point buy .... i just like the randomness with rolls. get some numbers, put em how you want them, figure out how to make the char interesting. that is fun for me. i am probably nostalgic because the most fun i had was where the party rolled 3d6 in order and played the chars we got .... i had a decent cleric 16 WIS but i couldn't get anyone to listen to my sermons because i had a 5 CHA. they just kept looking at the warts on my face. our fighter had a high of 14 and a low of 12 .... he seemed epic lol
and i see your point about being someones sidekick. if you wouldn't have fun playing something like that then there is no reason to do it. i see how i could run with it but just because it is fun for me it isn't gonna be fun for others :)
EDIT: changed some syntax to be less unintentionally offensive :)
oh you can do it with point buy .... i just like the randomness with rolls. get some numbers, put em how you want them, figure out how to make the char interesting.
Yeah, that's the opposite of my approach to character creation. I decide what and who I want to play first, then build the character to match that concept.
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oh you can do it with point buy .... i just like the randomness with rolls. get some numbers, put em how you want them, figure out how to make the char interesting.Yeah, that's the opposite of my approach to character creation. I decide what and who I want to play first, then build the character to match that concept.
i did that for the wrath of the righteous campaign we are running right now. i am really loving the pally love :)
With a party of 3 pc's we do this, each player rolls 4d6 drop low twice.
This generates the stat array that everyone uses. Works for us.
I would let the other players use the same stats that the other player rolled to keep things even, and next time use point buy.
I tried to GM for my friends who are used to a roll system. They complained that the 25pt buy was too limiting.
Darned if you do, darned if you don't.
This. Been there, experienced that
I like the "party roll, vote on array" method that's been suggested. I might try that.
To be fair, there's really only one player in our group that complains about point buy. And it's because it limits how incredibly high his stats can be. I think the rest of us understand and like the balancing factor of point buy.