If you let people roll dice for their characters, you basically have to trust that they're not going to do it over and over again until they have unreasonable scores, or you're just okay with players having unreasonable scores.
It's entirely possible to just roll really well the first time (I, just now, rolled a 15,11,14,16,14,17 on 4d6 drop low, which is a phenomenal spread), but the inherent problem with rolling is that you can have someone with phenomenal stats and someone with poor stats (2nd roll: 9 10,13,7,8,9,5 which is awful), so you want to mitigate this somehow.
When you have someone who is just rolling over and over again to get what they want, you're basically ensuring that someone (that person, to be specific) is going to have much better stats than someone else at the table. But resolving issues with trust and honesty are really a "dealing with other people" issue and how to handle those is going to vary a lot from table to table.
The core rulebook sets this out quite clearly. You get one set of rolls, and unless the rolls are not suitable for play (defined as the sum of the pluses and minuses resulting from the ability scores are less than +1), you're stuck with what you roll. All ability scores should be rolled on the table and noted down. If you're playing online, use Dicelog.com (verified e-mail feature) or use a virtual tabletop.
I'm afraid this player has the sense that having higher ability scores or more powerful characters makes the game more fun. A common misconception.
One thing that can help even out the disparity of having a variety of stat rolls is to have everybody, including the GM, roll an array of stats right there on the table, then let each player pick whichever array they want.
Huh, on re-read I guess the rule from 3.5 regarding rerolling ability scores (if the sum of pluses and minuses are not at least +1) wasn't carried over to Pathfinder. You learn something new every day!
rolling is garbage, for the love of god if you are the DM please use point buy and reduce randomness for your players. if your DM is making you roll, ask him to use point buy, to reduce randomness and keep all players on a level playing field. Rolling is awful.
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Frogsplosion, this is very much a matter of personal opinion. I for one love the randomness of rolling.
The whole premise of this hobby is that "rolling dice and hoping for good outcomes" is fun. This is as true at chargen as it is in combat. The whole trick of making stat rolling viable as a GM is you need some kind of safety net for players who roll really poorly.
Something like "you can use somebody else's roll instead" or "you can take this array offered by the GM instead" would suffice.
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In 3.5 I had a player roll, before my eyes, 18, 18, 18 17, 17, 16 in a single try ....
In a recent campaign that is meant to be fun more than power play I had the people roll. If the result was less than a 20 point buy you could switch to a 20 point buy. And if you roll, the results are read in sequence and applied to the stat in that sequence. You only get to switch 1 pair of stats with each other.
I was attempting to get some unusual character, like highly charismatic fighters or push the players into playing characters that are different from their standard.
So rolling stats can be used, but it can generate unbalances at the table. And Pathfinder has few systems for re balancing that.
I had some friends back in the 70s who did this. Their argument?
Well, back then we rolled 3d6 in order. If the results were unsatisfying, they would say "Well, I become a farmer/tradesman/whatever and decide never to go adventuring." Then they roll up another guy. Or, if the DM didn't allow that, they would play for half an hour and make sure that they got killed. Then roll up a new guy. <sigh>
We just had a long thread (another long thread) on character generation methods. Some players just really really like rolling for character stats, whatever the method, and despise point buy. If you get players like that, well... you kinda have to let them do it. It's part of their "fun". But instead of authorizing infinite rerolls, just have a backup array ready, and be sure to witness their rolls. If they really honestly do roll six sets of 18s, 17s and 16s... well, that's part of their fun.
OTOH, if they come to the table with such a set of rolls that you didn't personally witness... you have a potential conflict to resolve before even geting started with your game. Good luck.
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Sorry late to the party, but I did a hybrid using rolling with comparing to point buy.
Players roll 3d6 no rerolls six times. If their stats would fall between a 10 and 20 point buy, then they have to keep the rolls.
If their rolls were below a 10 point buy or above a 20 point buy then they had to discard and roll again.
This has worked great as PCs are rather close in stats and we get to keep the randomness of obtaining stats..
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I'm currently in an AP where character creation went 4d6, re-roll any dice that come up 1, then drop the lowest. Also, no traits. As it turned out, this method got us characters with an equivalent to 40-point buy, when APs presume 15-20 points.
Between being more than twice as tough as everyone else and the fact that we can plan and co-ordinate well, our wizard holds back on casting spells because "you guys have got this," our monk makes every perception/sense motive check and accepts every challenge, our bard will occasionally do something reckless just to "make things funnier," and our GM is thinking of trying out 20-point buy with traits for the next AP.
Though I agree with the GM that co-ordination and common sense do more for survival than having 14+ in every stat that modifies saving throws.
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When it comes to rolling stat's it's too easy to cheat. If you're going to do it for your campaign I'd recommend the concept of the game 0, when you go over all the house rules, give the players background story of the region, set up characters and just work out the kinks in an environment where the GM is right there specifically to answer questions.
I don't really have a huge preference with how rolling is done, but I do believe a minimum and maximum value should be set in some manner. I've seen it done in relation to point buy (Under 15 and over 30 get re-rolled) or number of high/low stats (if you have 4 or more stats below 10, or if you have 4 or more stats over 15) Or Total/Avg the values, and a total outside of 50-80 gets re-rolled, or an Avg outside of 10-14 gets re-rolled.
These kind of ranges give you variety in the stats and a chance at an above average character while excluding the extremes of the super character that does everything while the comic relief guy just follows around making jokes.
I do tend to lean toward the apply them in the order rolled over put them where you want. If you want to put your points where you want them, might as well just do a point buy. I can see allowing either a single veto of stats among the group, or allowing people to trade stats. Because... well for example I generally don't like playing Casters, I'm not sure I would want to be forced into that role simply because I created a character with crappy physical stats but insane Wis/Int/Cha. Allowing the entire party one chance to veto a set of stats gives you a chance to say either someone really doesn't want to play the kind of stats they rolled, or WOW, we don't have any stats that would make a decent Healer, we're all going to DIE! Swapping stats would let a player who got good physical stats but preferred casters swap with the guy that got good mental stats but hates playing casters.
... one of the people in my game rolled their character over and over until they got what they wanted ...
Did they do this in front of you, with your permission? If so IMO you should not have allowed it as that is not the spirit of rolling a character. If they roll like crap then allowing a reroll or two is reasonable but should be the GM's decision.
If they did not do that in front of you, with your permission, then even if they DID actually roll (and I sincerely doubted they did), IMO they cheated. They had numbers they wanted in their head for the character and they now have those numbers on the sheet.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could all just have the numbers we wanted on our sheets all the time?
While I enjoy rolling dice I have come to the conclusion that point buys are more fair when making characters for all concerned. It takes luck out of the process, allows you to have good stats where you want them for the character you want to play and does not mean that if you rolled average and someone else rolled insanely well your in their characters shadow for the entire game. Point buy allows everyone to start out exactly even on attributes.
Frogsplosion, this is very much a matter of personal opinion. I for one love the randomness of rolling.
I too miss the randomness of rolled characters (though I typically had really good rolls..)
However, in THIS game there are WAY too many people who complain about balance, or OP characters to really ever go random. If you think that the +1 you essentially get going from 20 point buy to 25 point buy breaks the game... then by all means NEVER allow rolling. I've seen some people do the math on that and play characters which would have been been 30+ point buys right next 10 point buy charactsrs...
2E was less focused on 'balance' and we rolled all the time. Pathfinder treads a very thin line and we've never even tried rolling in this one.
Bah! The only correct way to generate ability scores is 3d6, no rerolls, stats must be rolled in order! That's how we played AD&D and we were grateful for it! *sits in rocking chair, waiting to yell at kids getting too close to the yard*
No we didn't and you know it. Hehe :-)
I remember doing the 'roll until you get all good stats' approach when rolling stats in early computer RPGs. Wasteland, Bard's Tale, that sort of thing. The current campaign I'm in did 4d6 drop 1, and the dice gods smiled on me then. Still, I remember a mulligan rule or something like that, and wouldn't hold it against someone whose best roll was a 9.
However, doing the 'roll Xd6 characters and pick one' approach leaves a lot to be desired for. If nothing else it takes a lot of time, and ... well, what is the player's goal there?
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Frogsplosion, this is very much a matter of personal opinion. I for one love the randomness of rolling.I too miss the randomness of rolled characters (though I typically had really good rolls..)
However, in THIS game there are WAY too many people who complain about balance, or OP characters to really ever go random. If you think that the +1 you essentially get going from 20 point buy to 25 point buy breaks the game... then by all means NEVER allow rolling. I've seen some people do the math on that and play characters which would have been been 30+ point buys right next 10 point buy charactsrs...
2E was less focused on 'balance' and we rolled all the time. Pathfinder treads a very thin line and we've never even tried rolling in this one.
The effect of the rolled stats was way less, with the exception of the percentile values for strength, but that was limited to fighters, barbarian, rangers and 1st ed AD&D cavaliers.
Frogsplosion, this is very much a matter of personal opinion. I for one love the randomness of rolling.I too miss the randomness of rolled characters (though I typically had really good rolls..)
However, in THIS game there are WAY too many people who complain about balance, or OP characters to really ever go random. If you think that the +1 you essentially get going from 20 point buy to 25 point buy breaks the game... then by all means NEVER allow rolling. I've seen some people do the math on that and play characters which would have been been 30+ point buys right next 10 point buy charactsrs...
2E was less focused on 'balance' and we rolled all the time. Pathfinder treads a very thin line and we've never even tried rolling in this one.
The effect of the rolled stats was way less, with the exception of the percentile values for strength, but that was limited to fighters, barbarian, rangers and 1st ed AD&D cavaliers.
yep, I remember thinking anything under a 16 sucked back then. Now we're getting actual benefits for things above 11...
And your stats didn't really progress in 2E. What you started with was PRETTY close to where you ended. Even if you found a belt or book that boosted a stat... you only found the ONE... So starting with high stats wasn't a problem back then.