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I've always been surprised that Stat rolling is still hanging around as a tradition from the old days of table top RPGs - even to the point where rule books are reluctant to just come right out and say "Look, don't roll them, just do point buy and have a happy game."
IMHO, die rolling is for the round-to-round, day-to-day play out of the adventure. It's not for determining character defining attributes that impact everything the PC does, every single round for 15+ levels of a campaign.
If you're one of those GMs that "thinks it's a good challenge for the player" or "let the dice fall where they may and the players need to deal with it" - then you're doing a very mean thing and you don't realize it.
As the GM, you're not their parents, and you're not their coach - it's not your job to give them personal challenges and try to teach them life lessons (even if you could argue that they need one). Acting so is incredibly offensive to someone who is supposed to be your friend.
Well, there's his problem. Druid is a bad choice for those stats. Honestly, everything is except maybe a Theologian casting-focused cleric or possibly a Sensei.
He got shafted. If you wanted them to do something different why not just ask them to do something different instead of giving them horrible stats?
Wow, FORTY FOUR (4) points, and you call that horrible stats? Those are great.
This would make a great Cleric or a decent Oracle or even a Druid. Any Divine caster.
Clerics dont need to be melee monsters at low level. Pick the right domains and they can be casters. I'd make this a caster/channeling cleric.
I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but with those rolls, the character could be an incredible shaman, particularly with arcane enlightenment. The shaman in my Skull and Shackles game wishes he had those rolls! He's almost entirely a strictly-weaker version of that (I think he has 12 Dex and that's his only advantage).
And the player wants to be a melee monster. His entire issue-- the reason for the complaints in the title-- is that he doesn't want to be a caster or a channeler.
Has he ever even tried being a caster?
Has he ever even tried being a caster?
And the player wants to be a melee monster. His entire issue-- the reason for the complaints in the title-- is that he doesn't want to be a caster or a channeler.
The OP said that he hadn't played a caster since pathfinder came out. That he liked high dex characters. This is EVERYTHING the players seems to have been avoiding for years. Now the OP also said he'd played a caster in 3.5 so he's tried one.
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One thing to keep in mind, whoever gets the party face character NEEDS to be someone capable of doing that. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be at a table with the +20 Diplomacy mod paladin whose player can never think of anything relevant to say.
Just an idea.
Ah, yes, the classic "charismatic characters need to have charismatic players" argument.
Time for the "You better make sure your wizards are members of Mensa and your barbarians can bench over double their weight" response.
But, even further, despite how aptly that sums up my opinion on the matter:
Just as a wizard should not have to say "I grab a handful of guano from my spell component pouch, dangling from my side, rubbing it in my fingers and mumbling 'shabaladouchilachilaroustic' while moving my left hand in a counterclockwise circle and gyrating my hips like young Elvis, but most certainly not like old Elvis...I then fling my hand roughly thirty-five degrees to the north and watch amazed as a ball of flame explodes roughly 20' in diameter putting out the heat of, well, not a thousand suns, but like four ovens baking turkeys, at least"...
...but rather, is okay saying, "I cast fireball. I center it here. It does 27 damage...reflex 19 for half". The players and GM kinda fill in the blanks.
So, too, should a paladin not have to spell everything out. Rather, "I come up with a convincing argument for why they should let us go. I rolled a 23. Oh, and I have this cloak which gives me +2 to diplomacy with nobles," is perfectly acceptable.
Not everyone...in fact, the majority of players I've been around, (not that anecdotal evidence is everything, but so far for me it's been around 75% don't) want to roleplay absolutely every detail...but some of those same people want to play someone charismatic.
I usually tell my players to just give me the general idea of what they want to say--what approach they want to use, what emotions they want to appeal to, etc. It's a good way to get them started thinking along those lines, and I can adjust circumstance bonuses for good ideas.
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One thing to keep in mind, whoever gets the party face character NEEDS to be someone capable of doing that. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be at a table with the +20 Diplomacy mod paladin whose player can never think of anything relevant to say.
Just an idea.
Ah, yes, the classic "charismatic characters need to have charismatic players" argument.
Time for the "You better make sure your wizards are members of Mensa and your barbarians can bench over double their weight" response.
They don't need to be charismatic, but they need to have a basic ability to say something appropriate and ask relevant questions. It isn't equivalent to saying wizards need to know all of the intricacies of spellcasting components, but rather that wizards need to know their spell list and when good times to cast their spells are. We can assume that the wizard goes through the motions of casting properly, just as we can assume that the diplomat is charming when he asks a question, but we can't assume that the wizard chose a good spell or that the diplomat asked a good question.
Your spiel ignores the point that there are a lot of PLAYERS who like and prefer the gambling of dice rolling, especially those that deviate from the strict formula of 3d6, that throws some kicker that tends towards higher stats in average. I'm not one of them, but I know personally people that do.I've always been surprised that Stat rolling is still hanging around as a tradition from the old days of table top RPGs - even to the point where rule books are reluctant to just come right out and say "Look, don't roll them, just do point buy and have a happy game."
IMHO, die rolling is for the round-to-round, day-to-day play out of the adventure. It's not for determining character defining attributes that impact everything the PC does, every single round for 15+ levels of a campaign.
If you're one of those GMs that "thinks it's a good challenge for the player" or "let the dice fall where they may and the players need to deal with it" - then you're doing a very mean thing and you don't realize it.
As the GM, you're not their parents, and you're not their coach - it's not your job to give them personal challenges and try to teach them life lessons (even if you could argue that they need one). Acting so is incredibly offensive to someone who is supposed to be your friend.
I'd venture a bet that those players who do like that never ended up with an unlucky set of rolls, then looked at their fellow player with straight 17's across the board. Especially if they're playing similar class types.
Yeah, the game isn't a competition between players, but when from the beginning you screw up one set of rolls and the guy sitting next to you didn't, you get to be reminded that for the rest of the game when he's just flat-out better than you from an objective point of view.
Day-to-day stuff being rolled, fine, but stuff that permanently affects who your character is...not so fine.
THe character creation always goes like this, me "what do you want to play" him "i dont know im out of ideas" me "well why not try something new" him "no, then ill die" me "then play a rogue" him "i dont know what backstory or personaily or anything" then the rest of the players are like, lets do the roll down the line stats, and we vote and it passed and he rolls bad dexterity and b%%$%es about it every 2 minutes, he also complains whenever he is attacked or whenever we do roleplay parts
What is sounds like is you have a problem player. He's not engaged in your game, he's not engaged in making a character at all, and he's going to whine about the current game until he kills it. Suggest he sit out and find something else to do until his enthusiasm comes back. If he can't think of a new idea, he's burned out. He's participating out of habit, not desire. He needs vacation time. At least, that's how it appears to me.
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I'd venture a bet that those players who do like that never ended up with an unlucky set of rolls, then looked at their fellow player with straight 17's across the board. Especially if they're playing similar class types.
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Nope. I'm not one of them. I much prefer point buy. But I know several players who genuinely prefer rolling stats. Even if that gives them a lousy PC that they will have to try and make do with for the next 2 years of gaming.