Preamble:
Non-random chargen leads to samey-feeling characters - there is no way you can up with an unexpectedly high Intelligence for a Fighter for instance.
You can choose yourself to give your Fighter a high Intelligence, but that's not the same thing. It is 1) not unexpected, and 2) it requires you to sacrifice ability in something else.
You can roll for stats. However, that's 3) way less balanced and 4) with no guarantee you will end up with an acceptable array. In short, it's too easy the players to say "we want to roll" and then secretly expect that if you roll "too" badly, your GM will let you use the standard array instead (= using the regular ability boost system in PF2).
I googled, but the only threads I found on the subject was in the prerelease/playtest forums. I am interested in opinions based on experience with the final game.
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My question: Do you know of any serious* attempts at achieving the middle way?
*) with at least a basic analysis of the probabilities involved
Where you might end up with a Wizard with Strength 18 perhaps, but where the four party members still end up roughly the same, especially in their core competencies?
What about this?
Every "free" ability boost is to a random ability. The normal restrictions on ability boosts are waived: you can end up with a 19 or higher, and two boosts can apply to the same ability during a given step. Boosts above 18 still only provide a single point, however.
Where you roll d6 to determine the ability (1 Str; 2 Dex; 3 Con; 4 Int; 5: Wis and 6 Cha. You may reroll once any ability you have assigned an ability flaw to).
You are guaranteed two boosts in the abilit(ies) you really want, but certainly not four. Compared to random rolls, the advantage here is that the number of boosts stays the same for every character. You avoid one player rolling two 18's and two 16's while another character doesn't roll a single score above 13...
How many extra boosts do we need to give for this procedure to be viewed as at least "intriguing" and not merely "a trap"?
Maybe if you get to assign three abilities as "half value"? That is, if you consider Charisma non-essential to your Fighter character, each random ability boost to Charisma counts only as 1/2 of a boost. At the end of regular chargen, you get additional random ability boosts to make up the difference.
PS. Ability boosts as you level remain free choices under your control and not random.
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Example 1:
You want to create a typical Dwarf Fighter. You designate Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma as your "non-essential" abilities.
First you gain ability boosts from Ancestry to Constitution, Wisdom and one free. Charisma gets a flaw. Rolling a d6 we get 6. Since this is an ability we have assigned a flaw, we get to reroll: 6 again. So be it, the boost goes to Charisma and cancels out the flaw. You're "owed" half a boost.
Then you gain ability boosts from Background. We choose Guard, and we choose Strength and one free. Rolling a d6 we get 6, which means a reroll. We get 3: Constitution. Amount "owed": no increase.
Then you gain ability boosts from Class. We choose Fighter, and we choose Strength.
The we gain four free. Rolling four d6, we get: 2, 3, 3, and 5. Dexterity, Constitution twice, and Wisdom. That's another 1/2 boost, so we get one more boost: 1. Strength.
We end up with Strength 16, Dexterity 12, Constitution 18, Intelligence 10, Wisdom 14, Charisma 10.
Example 2:
Let's do a classic Elf Wizard. Non-essential abilities are Strength, Wisdom, Charisma.
Ancestry boosts to Intelligence, Dexterity and... 3: Dexterity. A flaw to Constitution. Nothing "owed".
Background Artisans, with boosts to Intelligence and... 3: Dexterity.
Class Wizard, boosting Intelligence.
Free boosts to 3, 2... reroll to 6, 3 (again), and 6 (again). That's two boosts to non-essential Charisma, meaning a bonus boost. We roll 2: Dexterity.
We end up with Strength 10, Dexterity 20(!), Constitution 8, Intelligence 16, Wisdom 10, Charisma 14.
Something I used for PF1: Take a deck of cards and pull out the numbers 4 to 9 in two suits. Shuffle those 12 cards, and lay them out in piles of two, one for each ability. The sum of the two cards is the ability score.
The results are roughly equivalent to all the boosts/penalties you get in PF2 character creation, although you will get odd numbers which end up being slightly weaker than even numbers.
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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Flagged for wrong forum. You can't keep dropping every your homebrew/houserule thread in General just because it's the most popular subforum.
Hill Giant wrote: Something I used for PF1: Take a deck of cards and pull out the numbers 4 to 9 in two suits. Shuffle those 12 cards, and lay them out in piles of two, one for each ability. The sum of the two cards is the ability score.
The results are roughly equivalent to all the boosts/penalties you get in PF2 character creation, although you will get odd numbers which end up being slightly weaker than even numbers.
Thank you. Except Pathfinder 2 specifies ability boosts (and flaws) for Ancestry, Background and Class.
Any old D&D chargen system resulting in 3-18 scores doesn't work, unless you ditch these predetermined ABC boosts.
I probably should have made it clear I'd prefer to not do that :)
Do char gen as normal then randomly add +4, +2, -2, -2, -2 to 5 stats.
Use an Excel sheet to tabulate many 4d6 rolls (it's pretty easy to generate 50k using copy and paste). Calculate the point buys and delete lines as necessary - points too high, points too low, high value too high, low value too low, too many odd values, too few odd values, etc.
Then just choose a line at random.
I did most of my PFS1 characters this way, by limiting point buys to exactly 20, values of 7-18 but with no more than one stat under 10, and no more than 2 odd values. I think I ran the 50k set 20 times to generate 1m rolls (Excel tends to crash if there are more than 64k lines with formulas).
For homebrew characters, I set a wider range of 18-23 points, no values under 10, and no more than 4 odd values. I used the same set, just some Excel formulas to change the filters.
After thinking about this I might tweak it;
Do char gen as normal then randomly add +4, +2, -2, -2, -2 to 5 stats.
-The highest stat can't get the +4
-The player can pick 1 stat that cannot get a minus
You can change the numbers if you want.
+4,+2,-2,-4
if you want the pcs to have a power up
+4,+2,+2,-2
or really whatever numbers you want the pcs to have.
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So I'm seeing a common thread with these suggestions as with all suggestions that always occur when this comes up, and that's the constant mitigation of the random within your random processes to maintain character fairness.
I think this speaks to the problem that random character gen and fair balanced outcomes are anathema to each other. You arent really going to get an implementation that preserves both you have to decide how much of one to give up for another.
Valandil Ancalime wrote: Do char gen as normal then randomly add +4, +2, -2, -2, -2 to 5 stats. Thank you! What about the sixth stat? Do you mean randomly add +4, +4, 0, -2, -2, -2 to the six stats?
Malk_Content wrote: So I'm seeing a common thread with these suggestions as with all suggestions that always occur when this comes up, and that's the constant mitigation of the random within your random processes to maintain character fairness.
I think this speaks to the problem that random character gen and fair balanced outcomes are anathema to each other. You arent really going to get an implementation that preserves both you have to decide how much of one to give up for another.
Yes, that's a stated assumption of the thread, so let's hear your stab at performing the impossible! :)
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I've tried a few methods of chargen that attempt to blend the random with the consistent, with mixed results.
Method 1: "Shared Destiny." The GM rolls one set of 6 scores and everyone assigns those scores as desired. Simple, random, but fair because EVERYONE gets the good with the bad.
Method 2: "The Catch." Assign a point buy, perhaps a few points lower than normal, but before they allocate their points roll ONE ability score that everyone must keep AS IS.
Method 3: "Tempting Fate." Every player gets a pool of 24d6 for abilities. They must use a minimum of 3d6 on each score but may choose where to allocate the remaining d6's, keeping the best 3 rolls for each score as per standard. This gives them the power to roll a regular "drop the lowest" set on everything...or hedge their bets on an 18 or two at the risk of lower scores. Great for roleplayers who love savant characters, SAD-builds and aren't afraid to play someone with a major weakness.
Zapp wrote: Valandil Ancalime wrote: Do char gen as normal then randomly add +4, +2, -2, -2, -2 to 5 stats. Thank you! What about the sixth stat? Do you mean randomly add +4, +4, 0, -2, -2, -2 to the six stats? yes, that sort of idea. I would probably polish the basic concept to take into account;
- the +4 going onto an 18
- giving the players some ability to have a choice in 1 stat
So I'll go with the only thing I'd accept as a player.
The 4 free boosts at the end are random. This means at worst my character is only going to be 1 less at something I wanted to focus on.
Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber
The existing ABCD system is so good at making viable characters that if you randomize it you do not make something bad. I use random AB which picks the dump stat, then select C that boosts best stat and does not use dump stats, then reinforce dump stats with optimized D. It makes unique viable characters, I use it to make quick pregens.
Random Characters
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Malk_Content wrote: So I'm seeing a common thread with these suggestions as with all suggestions that always occur when this comes up, and that's the constant mitigation of the random within your random processes to maintain character fairness.
I think this speaks to the problem that random character gen and fair balanced outcomes are anathema to each other. You arent really going to get an implementation that preserves both you have to decide how much of one to give up for another.
This thinking is too binary. "Random" and "fair" can both be pretty grey, and there's a lot of space in the middle where things can be both pretty random and pretty fair at the same time.
There are some obvious boundaries for random and fair: it's not fair if one character is better at everything than another character; it's not random if you can predict a large percentage of the attribute from a small percentage.
Within the space in the middle, you have some things that grant more randomness than fairness it subtracts - odd numbers, for instance, make a number set feel random, but doesn't actually affect the gameplay very much. Simply adding +1 randomly to two attribute scores would be a near-zero unfairness-cost way to make things appear way more random.
Valandil Ancalime wrote: Zapp wrote: Valandil Ancalime wrote: Do char gen as normal then randomly add +4, +2, -2, -2, -2 to 5 stats. Thank you! What about the sixth stat? Do you mean randomly add +4, +2, 0, -2, -2, -2 to the six stats? yes, that sort of idea. I would probably polish the basic concept to take into account;
- the +4 going onto an 18
- giving the players some ability to have a choice in 1 stat I don't think any special rules are needed for either case, if we express the bonuses and penalties as boosts and flaws.
I would express it as:
Step 1. Create your character normally
Step 2A. Randomize a stat, and apply two ability boosts to it.
Step 2B. Randomize another stat, and apply one ability boost to it.
Step 2C. Randomize a third stat, and don't change it.
Step 2D. Apply one ability flaw to each of the remaining stats.
This way you never end up more than 2 points short of the score you assign in step 1. You could end up with a 19 or even 20 in your best stat if you're lucky.
You still won't see any unexpected high scores, like 18 Strength for a Wizard, though.
Watery Soup wrote:
Within the space in the middle, you have some things that grant more randomness than fairness it subtracts - odd numbers, for instance, make a number set feel random, but doesn't actually affect the gameplay very much. Simply adding +1 randomly to two attribute scores would be a near-zero unfairness-cost way to make things appear way more random.
I mean yeah I guess, but designing a mechanic specifically so that it has 0 bearing on the game is reallly just a loophole. Even then it effects balance, just not at character creation as if your +1 goes into an 18 (thereby bringing it up to a 19) you character has more overall stats across the 20 levels than a character whose +1 falls on any other number. This is obviously a fairly minor imbalance but its also a random designed to not actually do anything.
Zapp wrote: Hill Giant wrote: The results are roughly equivalent to all the boosts/penalties you get in PF2 character creation, although you will get odd numbers which end up being slightly weaker than even numbers. Thank you. Except Pathfinder 2 specifies ability boosts (and flaws) for Ancestry, Background and Class.
Any old D&D chargen system resulting in 3-18 scores doesn't work, unless you ditch these predetermined ABC boosts.
I probably should have made it clear I'd prefer to not do that :) How about this: Take four each of 4, 6, and 8; randomly assign two to each ability score, and sum. This gives you a result from 8 to 16 with an average of 12, and only even numbers.
The above is roughly equivalent to what you would otherwise get from your six free boosts during character creation. So, to this result, you just add your set boosts/penalty from ABC (getting only ONE free boost if you're human).
Random is the opposite of balanced.
Instead of starting with all tens...
1) Take a deck of cards, remove everything but the Ace thru six.
2) Shuffle
3) Deal out the cards (6 stacks of 4 cards)
4) Drop the lowest card in each stack
5) The rest are your stats
5) Optional round up end result to nearest even number
While you can have some highs and lows since everyone is using the same cards they should be more or less balanced.
If you use two decks of cards, use 8 each of 2, 4, and 6. (This may be a little too high)
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