D&D 5E Array v 4d6: Punishment? Or overlooked data

[Wednesday Boy]

STR, CON, DEX, INT, WIS, CHA:
15, 12, 11, 12, 7, 15
17, 8, 12, 17, 9, 13

Wow. Both are good. I'd probably take the second array. The character would be a mountain dwarf who was pushed into being a wizard despite his incredible strength because he has a keen wit and wasn't as robust as other dwarves. To prove the naysayers wrong he mixed martial feats with his magical skill as an Eldritch Knight.

 

[LostSoul]

I am going to number the questions for ease of response.

1. Why would the rationale be any different for an adventure path than either a sandbox game or an episodic game? 2. Won't the higher-powered PC help the other PCs achieve their goals in an AP as much as a sandbox? 3. And wouldn't a GM want to make sure each PCs have roughly equal screen time in an AP as well as an episodic game? What's the difference?

1. Because adventure path, episodic, and sandbox games play differently and ask different things of the players involved. The players are making different decisions.

2. The players don't have their own goals in an adventure path. It's a forced, singular, party goal. In a sandbox, the players may or may not have shared goals, as they desire.

In a sandbox, one player might have his PC object to another player's PC's goal. This doesn't happen in an adventure path. The higher-powered PC becomes a strategic element in the game world, just like any other. (And this is why I think Alignment and Thieves were introduced to the game.)

If a player's PC has more power than other PCs (in any fashion) in a sandbox game, the players are going to have to deal with that fact. In an adventure path, you can just let that player's PC take the lion's share of trouble.

3. An episodic game revolves around screen time - it's the basic point of play (like time is in a Gygaxian game). In that case, the relative power of the PCs doesn't matter. But in a sandbox game it's important to maintain strategic consistency.

If the DM acts as an impartial arbiter of the game world, then "screen time" is going to vary. You can't do both at the same time. (Well, you could - while one PC fights off a horde of orcs while another eats lunch, and the player takes 30 minutes to do so, I guess you could spend 30 minutes going over the other PC's lunch.)

I'm not familiar enough with adventure paths to comment on screen time.

 

[Dalamar]

I think Dalamar pretty much nailed it back a few pages ago. Presuming that the math he's laid out holds, that would mean that when you die roll characters (4d6-1), you're going to get as good as the array or better twice as often as not.

Do note that I don't really have any math in the post. Just enumeration of the arrays in the original post. But as Sacrosanct said there:

Note: I didn't provide the formula for the exact odds of rolling X stat Y number of times for 6 stats. that's pretty darn cumbersome, and I think the sample size below can illustrate the point clearly enough and be a good enough sample size to show how things average out. funny enough the average stat total in this example is the same as the array at the bottom (72 points)

I think he is right that it can illustrate averages. I just see different things in it than he does.

 

[Joddy37]

Recently, I created a style of rolling, just for experimentation and fun. Instead of rolling 6 times for your character, roll 4 times instead, and then roll twice for both his father and mother, and find the average of each pair of scores from parents. That will be your remaining 2 roll results for your character. For example:

You rolled 4d6 drop lowest, 4 times: 14, 11, 11, 9
Father rolled: 10, 6
Mother rolled: 15, 14
Parents average: 13, 10 (if you round up one average, round down the next one. Or the opposite)

So your rolls are: 14, 11, 11, 9, 13, 10

With this style, two of your rolls are very much guaranteed to be in average range of 10-13. If you don't like to have several of your stats in this range, as an alternative you can take highest roll of one parent and the lowest roll of the other parent. In our example, this makes your roll: 14, 11, 11, 9, 10, 14 (or 14, 11, 11, 9, 6, 15) You can still roll bad, especially while you roll for your original 4 stats, but this method nearly eliminates having several low results (like 3 stats being under 10), or several high results (like 3 stats over 15)

Another example

You rolled: 10, 10, 12, 13
Father: 17, 12
Mother: 12, 8
Your results : 10, 10, 12, 13, 15, 10 ( or 10, 10, 12, 13, 17, 8)

 

[cavalier973]

In my opinion, if a DM were going to require rolled stats, the best option is roll 2d6, add 6, in order.

 

[Lerysh]

That's your opinion and I respect it. I just tend to go the opposite way because as a player, I like having the choice of being able to take the risk if I want it.

If you want the risk you can have it, but there are no backsies or complaints allowed. You roll it you keep it. After all, you wanted it.

We rolled stats at my table and everyone wound up with close enough to the point buy, but one guy had a 20 starting dex and a 12 low in his "dump stat". This guy is a mini god of destruction and virtually unstoppable. It's so bad as to be causing jealously among the other players. This is what random stat rolls bring.

On the other end of the spectrum you can have someone playing a 13 high with a 3. While some players may be up to the role-playing challenge I know many are not. Those who aren't just want to roll to get the "power" stats and then cry foul when they get stuck under powered. For these players point buy is better.

 

[Sacrosanct]

If you want the risk you can have it, but there are no backsies or complaints allowed. You roll it you keep it. After all, you wanted it.

We rolled stats at my table and everyone wound up with close enough to the point buy, but one guy had a 20 starting dex and a 12 low in his "dump stat". This guy is a mini god of destruction and virtually unstoppable. It's so bad as to be causing jealously among the other players. This is what random stat rolls bring.

On the other end of the spectrum you can have someone playing a 13 high with a 3. While some players may be up to the role-playing challenge I know many are not. Those who aren't just want to roll to get the "power" stats and then cry foul when they get stuck under powered. For these players point buy is better.

Again, this sounds like a player maturity problem rather than a rules problem. If you've got players who get jealous because another has higher stats, or players who whine because they got a low stat? Tell them to grow up or go play somewhere else.

Remember, the point of this thread wasn't to say one method was better than the other or that a player should be forced to use one method over the other. Only to say that if someone uses point buy and another uses random rolls, the first player isn't being punished.

 

[Celtavian]

Point buy is easier to run as a DM for a number of reasons. Rolling is more fun as a player (at least when you roll well).

 

[Hussar]

Again, this sounds like a player maturity problem rather than a rules problem. If you've got players who get jealous because another has higher stats, or players who whine because they got a low stat? Tell them to grow up or go play somewhere else.

Remember, the point of this thread wasn't to say one method was better than the other or that a player should be forced to use one method over the other. Only to say that if someone uses point buy and another uses random rolls, the first player isn't being punished.

Yes, because, again, it's the DM's job to enforce how the players should enjoy the game, rather than making the game fun for the players. :/

See, the thing is, the first player absolutely is being punished, because the die rolled player has so many mitigating factors in his favour that his will almost always get a higher value character than the point buy player. Sure, he might not. But, the vast majority of the time he will. It's purely gaming the system. If it wasn't then the mitigating factors would level the playing field so that die rolled would be under point buy just as often as it is over. But it's not. And, even when it is, if it's too far below point buy, the character is thrown away and a new array is rolled. The reverse is never true.

No one die rolls a character, gets a 45 point buy value character and says, "Oh, hey, this is too high, I should roll again". Getting that 45 point buy character without having to ask the DM if you could have a 45 point buy character (which the DM will almost always refuse) is the whole point of rolling in the first place.

 

[pemerton]

The very nature of conformity doesn't exactly lend towards uniqueness.

I don't find that stat values are a very significant determiner of PC personality and distinctiveness in and of themselves.

I have had PCs be memorable because they had high stats, and hence were effective; and have had PCs be memorable despite relatively low stats because of other steps taken in PC build to mitigate those low stats; but neither of these cases strikes me as an arguments in favour of rolling for stats.

Random rolls have no place in determining stats or hit points. I mean honestly, it makes about as much sense as rolling the starting level for each character in the group.

Your last sentence is also nothing but exaggerated hyperbole as well. One big giant false equivalency.

it's a HUGE false equivalency to equate the power difference between a level 1 and level 2 PC with a PC that has an extra +1 to an ability somewhere.

I don't see any false equivalency.

Gaining a level can boost proficiency bonus, hit points, number of attacks (= damage output) and stats. Plus grant some special abilities.

Having better stats is equivalent to a better proficiency bonus, if it's CON will grant more hit points (and 1d8+3 is better hit points than 2d8-2 - 1st level with 16 CON vs 2nd level with 8 CON), and if it's on an attack stat will boost damage. And obbviously better stats are strictly equivalent to gaining stat points from levelling.

In fact, in a game that equates +2 to a stat to +1 feat, it woud make as much sense to roll for starting feats as it does to roll for starting stats.

Being a couple points better on a check, attack, or doing a couple more points of damage per hit is all within the game's tolerances.

This is why I don't think rolling for starting level (say, 1d2) is wildly different from rolling for stats. It doesn't put any greater stress on the game's tolerances.

I think this depends on whether you're the type of player who enjoys the story the game is developing whether or not you're the top damage dealer or whether you're the type who competes with your fellow players.

That strikes me as far from covering the field of possible player motivations. What if you're the sort of player who wants to shape the story of the game, and recognises that in a system like 5e action resolution (and hence the stat modifiers that drive it) is key to doing so?