D&D 5E Why I Am Starting to Prefer 4d6 Drop the Lowest Over the Default Array.

[Zardnaar]

Huh. My gnome paladin, built with the default array, dual wields rapiers in breastplate. He is totally viable and does not suck. (Be quiet, [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION]!)

Gnomes can't be Paladins. Humans only.

 

[Rabbitbait]

Gnomes can't be Paladins. Humans only.

Boooo. That Gnome Paladin sounds awesome. Annoying for everyone else at the table, but awesome for the player who designed him. Don't you badwrongfun [MENTION=6801204]Satyrn[/MENTION] and his eccentricities.

 

[Mike Harris]

I like the philosophy of 4d6 drop lowest. I think that characters born from point buy kind of miss out on having low stats (5s, 6s, or 7s). I agree that allowing someone to start with a 20 is too strong though as they'll basically have the equivalent of a permanent +2 weapon compared to other players with that same stat that are created through point buy. Excluding edge cases (such as an 18 roll), I think that players lose enjoyment from a game when someone can do everything that they can do, except better. I don't think i have seen a PC be upset, in contrast, about an encounter being trivialized by the virtue of having a +4 in a stat where they would normally have a +3.

I use the following rules, which get a little more complicated than I would like, but addresses the large variance issue.

- 4d6 drop lowest, max you can get is a 17 and lowest you can get is a 5.
- Each party member then totals up their stat array, and the DM swaps rolls between players with large point differentials.

 

[JonnyP71]

Gnomes can't be Paladins. Humans only.

Correct.

And they must be Lawful Stupid, and have 17 charisma.

 

[Zardnaar]

Correct.

And they must be Lawful Stupid, and have 17 charisma.

Thats right.

 

[CapnZapp]

We are doing this (which I stole from this board at some point) after the current campaign ends at 20th (we are close):

Everyone rolls ONE set of 4d6 drop lowest, then each set is written down on a sheet of paper. Players pick the stat array they want from the list, and players can even pick the same one. This way, either everyone is screwed equally, or everyone gets the god stats.

This yields significantly stronger characters, and is definitely not a balanced approach.

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[CapnZapp]

High stats exacerbate the basic design flaw that any build which is supported by feats is better than a build which doesn't have feat support, since a feat that you can use is as good as +2 in your prime stat and you're still going to max out your prime stat anyway. If you can max out your prime stat at level 1, then you can pick up your feat at level 4, and you'll instantly be better than anyone who doesn't also have a feat tailored to them.

The game also falls apart as the average Con score of the party rises. Since Con increases your maximum HP and the rate at which you recover HP through rest and Hit Dice, a party with good Con across the board is going to have so many HP as to be virtually un-threatened by any ordinary challenges. You're supposed to need to sacrifice something important, if you want to focus on Con. Any class which only relies on one stats for everything it needs to do, and can then invest in Con at no trade-off, is fundamentally flawed by being SAD.

Very much this.



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[Waterbizkit]

The method for ability score generation is a group decision for me and my players. I always push for point-buy, slightly higher than default, but invariably my players out-vote me and we go with 4d6.

Now, I cut my teeth on 3d6 in order, and by the time I started DMing 4d6 was basically the go-to method, but I push point-buy because I honestly just want my players to all start out on equal footing. I prefer the point-buy over an array because everyone has the same resources at their disposal but they still get to allocate them as they want... so it's not quite as cookie cutter.

Like I said though, my players will always choose to roll. I never understood the allure of the excitement that comes from five minutes of gambling when weighed against having to live with the results for months. But that's why we decide as a group, it's not up to me. There's been a few exceptions, but those are usually when my players want me to make pre-gens... which does happen if you can believe it.

 

[Yunru]

So you're preferring 4d6 because you're ignoring the lower rolls and only taking the higher ones over an array? Big shocker there. I say ignoring, because almost all of your examples are dependent on statistically higher than normal rolls. So you're either ignoring low rolls, or cheating, because there's no way statistically you would have the majority of your PCs having stats be higher than array or point buy. Statistically, you'd have just as many PCs with lower stats as you do with higher stats, and yet your examples are almost always higher. So either you have a lot of moon druids in your group, or someone is fibbing the dice rolls.

*Note, this isn't meant to pick on you as a new thing, per se, because after 35 years of gaming, it's always interesting to see how everyone always has higher stats for their PCs than what the math would suggest.

In practice at many a table I've sat at the table's all rolled higher-than-average without fail... except me. I seem to be cursed with average.

 

[MoonSong]

I picked up 5e after not having played since basic and AD&D 1e.

My initial reaction: "You mean I can choose WHICH ability gets which roll instead of rolling them in order? Wow!"

My favorite is now 4d6, drop lowest, and assign to a score. But rolling 3d6 and assigning in order and learning to make do with what you were "born" with is its own kinda fun, which seems to be lost on newer generations of players.

Didn't AD&D have rules to reduce and increase scores after you rolled?

Other times it's fun to play with a starting '6' in something (usually Wisdom!), which neither point buy nor array can provide.

And sometimes the challenge of bringing something along that has horrible or bland stats compared to the rest of the party is worth the effort, just for the satisfaction of pulling it off. It certainly doesn't happen every time.

Lanefan

That is part of the appeal of rolling, if I just could actually roll low without being forced to rerroll. I really wish there was a way to get 5 or 6 no matter what.