EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
And one good quote deserves another:
Lennier: I see they trained you well back home.
Marcus Cole: Well, they said I was carrying around a lot of repressed anger.
Lennier: And?
Marcus Cole: I'm not repressed anymore!
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D&D 5E Array v 4d6: Punishment? Or overlooked data
- Thread starter Sacrosanct
- Start date
And one good quote deserves another:
Lennier: I see they trained you well back home.
Marcus Cole: Well, they said I was carrying around a lot of repressed anger.
Lennier: And?
Marcus Cole: I'm not repressed anymore!
Halivar
First Post
My OSRIC henchmen generator linked in my sig uses a technique I have played around with in AD&D, and I think it could work in 5th. It's a grid system where you roll 3d6 (or maybe you could do 4d6-drop-1) 15 times and arrange them like so:
Each stat thus has four possible values, BUT once you use a value, you scratch it off; it is now unavailable to the crosswise stat. This is called a "grid" system (and has been floating around for a while), but I modified it to add a gutter with an extra possible value per stat as a grace to add more flexibility in character builds. One other suggestion is to allow a one-time stat-swap; for instance, if I want to play a wizard, and I want a high Int, the above grid does me no good. I could swap the 16 for the 8 and have my choice stat.
But let's say I wanted to build a paladin in this system. It would look like this, maybe:
I swapped out Cha's gutter 5 with Con's gutter 7 as my one swap, and pick stats like so:
STR: 16
DEX: 13
CON: 12
INT: 11
WIS: 13
CHA: 14
I think those are comfortable stats to start with 5E, and by no means overpowered. If you choose to use 4d6-drop-1 you'll see a significant power increase; consider getting rid of the gutter values if you do.
| STR | DEX | CON | ||
| INT | 8 | 13 | 11 | 8 |
| WIS | 13 | 5 | 9 | 9 |
| CHA | 16 | 12 | 12 | 5 |
| 11 | 14 | 7 |
But let's say I wanted to build a paladin in this system. It would look like this, maybe:
| STR | DEX | CON | ||
| INT | 8 | 13 | 11 | 8 |
| WIS | 13 | 5 | 9 | 9 |
| CHA | 16 | 12 | 12 | 14 |
| 11 | 5 | 7 |
STR: 16
DEX: 13
CON: 12
INT: 11
WIS: 13
CHA: 14
I think those are comfortable stats to start with 5E, and by no means overpowered. If you choose to use 4d6-drop-1 you'll see a significant power increase; consider getting rid of the gutter values if you do.
Never heard the comment "The plural of anecdote is not data" before, but I will probably find myself referring to it in the future. Uh ... maybe that wasn't your intent ... lol
Greenstone.Walker
Adventurer
In my experience, the people who consider the standard array "punishing" are quite often the people who do the "rolled, no those are low, that character died in training, roll again, not very good, that's ok, the gm says reroll anything below 10, hmm, don't like that, those rolls didn't count, roll again…" dance.
In other words, it is not "4d6k3 vs array" it is "reroll until you get god stats vs array".
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Do keep in mind, that's a six year old post.In my experience, the people who consider the standard array "punishing" are quite often the people who do the "rolled, no those are low, that character died in training, roll again, not very good, that's ok, the gm says reroll anything below 10, hmm, don't like that, those rolls didn't count, roll again…" dance.
In other words, it is not "4d6k3 vs array" it is "reroll until you get god stats vs array".
But yes, in general, I agree with this now, as I did back then. The comparisons, e.g. the "reliable IRA vs the risky investment," are incorrect because they ignore the sustained and considerable pressure to remove nearly all actual risk from the risky investment.
"Which would you choose: the reliable IRA that will guarantee a 5% yearly return on investment, or the risky investment which could return anything from 5% to 100%?"
"Wait, why is the minimum 5% from the risky investment? Can't it lose money...?"
"Oh, if you get a bad return, you can petition the government for relief and a tax writeoff. It's obviously a consolation prize."
"So...why would I ever take the IRA if it has the same minimum return...?"
"Good question!"
Groups that use rolling very frequently do not actually force players to stick with a crappy roll. Anything significantly worse than the array is verboten.
Oofta
Legend
Yeah, the average difference between array (or point buy) is pretty minimal if you use 4d6k3 strictly.In my experience, the people who consider the standard array "punishing" are quite often the people who do the "rolled, no those are low, that character died in training, roll again, not very good, that's ok, the gm says reroll anything below 10, hmm, don't like that, those rolls didn't count, roll again…" dance.
In other words, it is not "4d6k3 vs array" it is "reroll until you get god stats vs array".
Since 4d6k3 is random it's at most tables of 6 one person will be significantly better than standard array, one will be significantly lower.
Been there, done that, didn't even get the lousy t-shirt. No thanks.
11, 12, 13, 13, 14, 16 seems a bit better than 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15. At the bottom, your -1, 0 each step up one to 0, +1. At the upper end it might depend on other build choices that affect stats, but the 16 is clearly a solid step above the 15.
Good point!
Sword of Spirit
Legend
I'm a fan if D&D traditions, but random stats and hit points are something I'm highly opposed to. The reason is that they are incongruous with other character creation elements. They are one time random rolls that create permanent character traits.
Nothing else does that. If it did, we would roll randomly to determine race, class, background, skills, languages, feats or ASI placement, etc.
It's a completely different design philosophy--and always was, we just didn't think about it back in the day.
Random hit points have no value in modern D&D because they strait up just give some PCs a permanent advantage over others based purely on luck. (Yes, I'm sure all two D&D players who consider that a good thing (out of the millions who would agree with me will pipe up about this statement, but the rest of those who want that experience are probably playing DCC or another OCR game designed around that play style.)
Random abilities scores can be useful in certain situations, when done in non-standard ways. They are useful when you don't want a player to come to the table with a character concept. This could be because the desired outcome is to be inspired to play different characters (or just differently expressed characters) than you otherwise would, or because there is a desire for a minigame to see how best to use those stats. Unless that is the case, your group should not use this as it will directly oppose your play goals. Standard D&D play goals involve already having a character in mind, or at the minimum wanting to be able to choose every important aspect of them. Random stats interferes with that.
And in the uncommon situation where the goals of character creation actually do align with one of the random stat friendly motives instead of the more common motives, you should use a variant that makes sure everyone's stats end up equal despite being random. That doesn't mean sharing a minimum value but allowing randomness to give you more--that's still the same thing, and this has all the same issues as random hit points. No, the total value of any generated random array needs to be equal.
Here is an example of how methods and motive working in harmony can actually play out.
I had the goal of potentially having players fully choose their character stats, but inspiring alternate ways to express that character. I created a method of randomly rolling stats that created equal results, and a point buy method that created results equal to the array, but which couldnt produce all the same values. Rolling can get you higher or lower numbers, while point buy keeps you in a certain range and make balanced stats more efficient.
Each player rolled a set of stats using the random and equal method. Then each player could choose to use any of those rolled arrays (more than one person could choose the same one) or use point buy. It seemed to work because people chose from the various options rather than all doing the same thing.
That's just one example--other methods can be used. I think the principle about motive and method fitting each other have to be taken into accohnt to avoid conflict, and the example considerations given above are some of the few reasons one might validly choose to use random stats or hit points.
Nothing else does that. If it did, we would roll randomly to determine race, class, background, skills, languages, feats or ASI placement, etc.
It's a completely different design philosophy--and always was, we just didn't think about it back in the day.
Random hit points have no value in modern D&D because they strait up just give some PCs a permanent advantage over others based purely on luck. (Yes, I'm sure all two D&D players who consider that a good thing (out of the millions who would agree with me will pipe up about this statement, but the rest of those who want that experience are probably playing DCC or another OCR game designed around that play style.)
Random abilities scores can be useful in certain situations, when done in non-standard ways. They are useful when you don't want a player to come to the table with a character concept. This could be because the desired outcome is to be inspired to play different characters (or just differently expressed characters) than you otherwise would, or because there is a desire for a minigame to see how best to use those stats. Unless that is the case, your group should not use this as it will directly oppose your play goals. Standard D&D play goals involve already having a character in mind, or at the minimum wanting to be able to choose every important aspect of them. Random stats interferes with that.
And in the uncommon situation where the goals of character creation actually do align with one of the random stat friendly motives instead of the more common motives, you should use a variant that makes sure everyone's stats end up equal despite being random. That doesn't mean sharing a minimum value but allowing randomness to give you more--that's still the same thing, and this has all the same issues as random hit points. No, the total value of any generated random array needs to be equal.
Here is an example of how methods and motive working in harmony can actually play out.
I had the goal of potentially having players fully choose their character stats, but inspiring alternate ways to express that character. I created a method of randomly rolling stats that created equal results, and a point buy method that created results equal to the array, but which couldnt produce all the same values. Rolling can get you higher or lower numbers, while point buy keeps you in a certain range and make balanced stats more efficient.
Each player rolled a set of stats using the random and equal method. Then each player could choose to use any of those rolled arrays (more than one person could choose the same one) or use point buy. It seemed to work because people chose from the various options rather than all doing the same thing.
That's just one example--other methods can be used. I think the principle about motive and method fitting each other have to be taken into accohnt to avoid conflict, and the example considerations given above are some of the few reasons one might validly choose to use random stats or hit points.
Sword of Spirit
Legend
For those who don't want to think through all of that:
Random Stats Quick Fix: Each player randomly generates an array of 6 ability scores. Then each player can choose to use any of those randomly generated arrays, and more than one player can choose the same array. If you want to avoid the possibility of all of the arrays being sub-standard, each player also has the choice to use point buy, which they decide after seeing all the random arrays, not before.
If you want random stats but that method seems unsatisfying to you, then you need to carefully consider what your motivations are and whether they are a good fit for your group and your stat generation methods.
Random Stats Quick Fix: Each player randomly generates an array of 6 ability scores. Then each player can choose to use any of those randomly generated arrays, and more than one player can choose the same array. If you want to avoid the possibility of all of the arrays being sub-standard, each player also has the choice to use point buy, which they decide after seeing all the random arrays, not before.
If you want random stats but that method seems unsatisfying to you, then you need to carefully consider what your motivations are and whether they are a good fit for your group and your stat generation methods.
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