If you want to please your players tell them you blooped up and swap back to point buy. You should give the lucky player something so he won't regret his good luck. A magic sword or a box of scrolls will suffice.
Look, we can argue basic statistics until we are blue in the face. All of these percentages are correct and none of them definitively prove anything. We all agree that more is better. We all are using the percentages that make our personal approximation of how much better look correct. Statistics like this can only measure quantity, not quality. So while we can say 10% more or 50% more, we are using a measure of quantity to try to describe quality. While the difference does have a quantitative part, it also has a qualitative part that is real but not easily expressed numerically.
But with a strength of 14 I will have a 23.8% greater chance of getting everyone killed, which is on average 18.4% less fun!
I prefer rolling 4d6 take best 3 but in order.
Me too. Rolling in order, I end up with characters I'd never have thought to design - and it ends up being more varied and interesting because of it (IMHO).
(Also have a rule that player can reroll ALL stats if no score is over 13 or total mods are +3 or less).
Here's a couple of sets of roll-in-orders I just made. What would you do with them? (Remember to add racials). Would you find them playable?
1/
Str: 12 (+1) , Dex: 11, Con: 16 (+3) , Int: 13 (+1), Wis: 10, Cha: 15 (+2)
(Equivalent to a 23 point buy, but a combination I can't see a point-buyer ever choosing).
2/
Str: 17 (+3), Dex: 6 (-3), Con: 7 (-2), Int: 14 (+2), Wis: 11, Cha: 11
Total mods are 0, so we re-roll as per the rule above, getting:
Str: 13 (+1), Dex 8 (-1), Con: 16 (+3), Int 16 (+3), Wis: 17, Cha: 16
Regarding the button ... I'd take the million in real life.
But this is a game. (If it was GAME money rather than real money, I'd press the 50/50 button; more interesting).
Of course, if we want to make it a fair comparison we would want something like:
Button 1 - You get $1,000,000
Button 2 - You get 4d6DTL x $82,000
(average approx $1 million, minimum approx $240,000, maximum approx $1,470,000)
(Thinking of a point buy roughly equivalent to 4d6DTL, which is near enough a 20 point buy).
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If you want to please your players tell them you blooped up and swap back to point buy. You should give the lucky player something so he won't regret his good luck. A magic sword or a box of scrolls will suffice.
Either that or figure out about what his stats equivalent would be in a point buy and perhaps make them alittle less via the point buy?
i.e. if he could essentially have 22 points via a point buy, let them have 20 simply because his stats based on the roles would have odd number values which yield no bonus and the point buys would essentially put the values at even to maximize the effectiveness of it.
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Str: 12 (+1) , Dex: 11, Con: 16 (+3) , Int: 13 (+1), Wis: 10, Cha: 15 (+2)
Scarred witch doctor, or Angel-Blooded Aasimar for +2 Str and Cha and go for Paladin with heavy armour and invest in a good Belt of Str later on.
Str: 13 (+1), Dex 8 (-1), Con: 16 (+3), Int 16 (+3), Wis: 17, Cha: 16
With mental stats that good and con to spare, I'm thinking Samsaran mystic theurge. Or just any caster cleric and revel in the skill points!
That said, in order stats do require you to base your character concept on the stats, which isn't for everyone. Most of the players in my group have an idea of what they'd like to play before sitting down at a game. I wouldn't roll stats in order unless the entire group was keen - though I might give a small bonus like +2 to any stat to a player who optionally commits before rolling to use the stats in order.
Probability of rolling 4-17s and 2-18s in a 4d6 drop the lowest, 6 times is 1 in 1,260,160,177.
*the player handed you weighted or shaved dice*
Possible, but remember that there are a lot of gamers out there rolling out a lot of characters and improbably rolls are bound to crop up sometimes.
Probability of rolling 4-17s and 2-18s in a 4d6 drop the lowest, 6 times is 1 in 1,260,160,177.
Yeah - this came up in a previous thread as well. Any time someone claims to have rolled stats with odds worse than winning the lottery, I assume their memory has embellished the truth.
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How I usually do it is 4d6 drop lowest, reroll 1s or 2d6+6. They do that three times to get a nice set of arrays to go from, then pick their favorite out of the three. If all 3 arrays suck, I calculate the average point buy value of the other players arrays and give them a close average equivalence.
Exactly, all I am saying that to be game breaking it takes a player not simple numbers usually. Now if one player rolled all 10's and the other rolled all 18's you may have a problem... (Chances if that both happening in the same game are like what .040%?)
0.04% is a really high estimate.
Using the 4d6 drop the lowest, people roll 18s 1.62% of the time and roll 10s 9.41% of the time. The odds of rolling 6 stats of the same number is that number to the 6th power and also extremely unlikely. If someone rolls straight 18s, they are clearly cheating (weighted or shaved dice).
The chance of rolling straight 18s is 1.62%^6 (1.62% for the first 18, 1.62% of the second 18, 1.62% for the third 18, 1.62% for the fourth 18, 1.62% for the fifth 18, and 1.62% for the sixth 18). 0.00000000181% is the chance of rolling straight 18s.
The chance of rolling straight 10s is 9.41%^6. 0.0000694% chance to roll straight 10s.
These numbers are confusing by themselves, but are great for comparing. Rolling straight 10s is 38,400 times more likely than rolling straight 18s.