D&D 4E How Badly Do Randomly Rolled Stats Affect 4E Math?

[ourchair]

One of the things that 4e has been careful about is balanced level progression that maintains a deliberate pace, to ensure that a DM always has an easy time building encounters. Level 1 monsters fight level 1 players, level 2 players fight level 4 creatures for a 'hard' challenge', etc.

The thing is I've noticed that that only seems to apply to point buy or players with less than a total of 10 in ability bonuses. In all 4E campaigns that My Girlfriend, the DM, and I have been in, behind or in front of the screen, absolutely everyone -- newbies and vets -- insists on rolling their stats. I don't mind as its faster than watching people try to do the point buy math.

However, when dealing with randomly rolled stats, I tend to get players on the high end of the power curve with around +12 after racial modifiers. That means that monsters of their appropriate level aren't the challenge they ought to be.

So, my question is:

What level should monsters be if the players are tougher than normal, and can that answer be measured in math?

 

[LostSoul]

If you're going to roll for stats, you might as well throw out the idea of "balanced" encounters and let the players decide which threats they want to face.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I do not think rolling stats will break the game, not if an 18 before racial and a 16 before racial are considered balanced.

YEs, bad luck can hose someone a bit, but I think the abilities mean less in 4E than they did in earlier editions, so go for it.

If the whole party is sub-par, especially in their attack stat, then maybe give them a tiny break, but overall, I would not have a problem with rolling.

3d6 rolled 6 times in order FTW. (Though I do not do this, and have not for decades)

 

[ourchair]

I do not think rolling stats will break the game, not if an 18 before racial and a 16 before racial are considered balanced.

YEs, bad luck can hose someone a bit, but I think the abilities mean less in 4E than they did in earlier editions, so go for it.

If the whole party is sub-par, especially in their attack stat, then maybe give them a tiny break, but overall, I would not have a problem with rolling.

3d6 rolled 6 times in order FTW. (Though I do not do this, and have not for decades)

My worry isn't about sub-par rolls, my worry is about the fact that random generation consistently generates higher stats in all my games and makes it difficult to rely on the DMG guidelines.

Simply put, I need more than 5 Lvl 3 monsters to challenge a 5 PC party of Lvl 3, but I don't know how much is too much. Higher levels? Or more monsters? Or both?

 

[Garthanos]

If you're going to roll for stats, you might as well throw out the idea of "balanced" encounters and let the players decide which threats they want to face.

Honestly LS are you in a bad mood ? Balance isn't about not letting people chose the threats they face.. (I see players avoiding encounters or out right running from them all the time PCs just arent wimps easily killed by one random die roll... and the DM has a better idea when he is challenging his players or not and he can give them fair warning (something Gygax always recommended and aimed for but never quite gave sufficient tools for)

When characters are wildly divergent in competence you may find challenging one guy means making the encounters more deadly for others. And if you design your challenges for the other guys ... the one with uber competence never breaks a sweat.

I will agree that complaining about this because you chose to let a tumbling piece of plastic be a strong determiner of the characters long term capabilities shrug... well I think you get what you get.

None of this is necessarily a game breaker until it gets extreme its identical with optimized versus not so optimized characters

 

[Nork]

Are the stat rolls being observed by the DM? I'm not saying it is the case here, but I've noticed that a lot of players used to quietly apply all sorts of 'common law house rules' or 'that roll didn't count' rationalizations when it came to stat rolling before point buy was widely accepted. If everyone has awesome stats and nobody has an average character or a stinker, then dice rolls might need to be policed (with the DM helping out someone sad that they rolled a stinker [not that terrible characters can't be the most fun characters]).

As for the math, I don't think it should be too big of a deal. One stat to hit, one stat for bonus damage and rider effects. Both stats can be high under point buy. Overall being above average will only really give slightly easier pre-reqs to feats and slightly better hps and defenses, but I'm not sure it will be over the top unless every stat is an 18.

By default D&D is a pretty easy game mechanically. Don't worry if people are not challenged by the mechanics. The players will challenge themselves with the inevitable terrible decisions that they make soon enough.

 

[Kingreaper]

What random generation method are you using?

If you want to know how badly the stats will change the maths, it's necessary to know that.

4d6, drop the highest, 6 times in order is a very different animal from 16+1d2, roll (well, flip) 7 stats, drop one, and place as you like. (to take two ridiculous extremes)

 

[Dice4Hire]

My worry isn't about sub-par rolls, my worry is about the fact that random generation consistently generates higher stats in all my games and makes it difficult to rely on the DMG guidelines.

Simply put, I need more than 5 Lvl 3 monsters to challenge a 5 PC party of Lvl 3, but I don't know how much is too much. Higher levels? Or more monsters? Or both?

If they are all +1 or _+2 above average I just do not see how it could be that big of a difference. A 14-16 is not that big of a change, and honestly neither is an 18-20.

It will probably help with armor proficiencies and feat requirements, but I cannot see it as that big.

But other people's mileage may vary.

 

[Garthanos]

Simply put, I need more than 5 Lvl 3 monsters to challenge a 5 PC party of Lvl 3, but I don't know how much is too much. Higher levels? Or more monsters? Or both?

PSSSd
[sblock=simple secret]
PCs arent intended to be challenged by equal level encounters (they are challenged by level+3 if you look at even the normal numbers)[/sblock]

 

[LostSoul]

Honestly LS are you in a bad mood ?

Well now I am! (just kidding)

Balance isn't about not letting people chose the threats they face.. (I see players avoiding encounters or out right running from them all the time PCs just arent wimps easily killed by one random die roll... and the DM has a better idea when he is challenging his players or not and he can give them fair warning (something Gygax always recommended and aimed for but never quite gave sufficient tools for)

I think balance is about having to make a choice between multiple options, none of which is the obvious "right" one for whatever you're trying to accomplish. I don't think balance is evenly-matched fights. That's why I put balance in quotes, since I'm using someone else's idea of the term.

When characters are wildly divergent in competence you may find challenging one guy means making the encounters more deadly for others. And if you design your challenges for the other guys ... the one with uber competence never breaks a sweat.

I don't think that rolling for stats will unbalance the game (using my definition) to the point where the other players have no choices to make.

*

My point was this: If you're going to go off the chart by rolling for stats, why not go all the way? That way you don't have to worry about whether or not you've built the encounter correctly. Let the players deal with that.

Of course this means giving the players information that you wouldn't normally have to - "This dungeon is level 5, this dungeon is level 3, this dungeon is level 7. Where do you want to go tonight?" - but that's fine.