D&D General How Do You "Roll Up" Ability Scores?

[Parmandur]

Right, but if you get a garbage character AGAIN, you get to reroll AGAIN. I'm not saying that the math is exactly the same as Advantage, I'm saying that if one player gets to roll multiple times for their character, and another does not... it's not equal.

Look, I'm not trying to say that it is a super big deal or that anyone who plays that way is doing anything wrong. I played that way for decades. I just noticed the inequality (on multiple occasions, but one stood out as particularly uneven). So I don't do it that way anymore. Based on all the various ways people have shown that they roll (or don't roll) here, I can see that I am not alone.

I have never, ever seen more than a single Mulligan start from scratch. Very rate to fo it once.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

No. If they both have the same chance to re-roll when they get a bad roll, it is equal. The odds and averages are exactly equal.

But when you roll close to the cutoff line (usually a "meh" set of stats, neither terrible nor great), you are "forced" to keep it. But if you roll truly terribly, you get a second chance at a power character. It might START as a fair deal, but it can wind up not ending that way.

 

[Reynard]

But when you roll close to the cutoff line (usually a "meh" set of stats, neither terrible nor great), you are "forced" to keep it. But if you roll truly terribly, you get a second chance at a power character. It might START as a fair deal, but it can wind up not ending that way.

Solution: every player can reroll, regardless of the outcome, as many times as the person who rolled the lowest initial set decided to reroll until happy, taking the best set.

 

[prabe]

Solution: every player can reroll, regardless of the outcome, as many times as the person who rolled the lowest initial set decided to reroll until happy, taking the best set.

Or have hard lines. Reroll if and only if you don't get [whatever]. Otherwise keep your rolls.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Generally speaking we use point buy. When we have rolled it has been some variation on 4d6 drop lowest placed. The results which have caused the most unhappiness is when there is a big disparity between the scores of one PC and another. Such as when one player rolls 18 17 15 14 14 11 and another player rolls 14 11 10 8 7 6.

 

[aramis erak]

For BX/BECMI/Cyclopedia, 3d6 in order, swap points.
In D&D 5E, array or point build only.
Since the only other editions I'd even consider running are OE and 4E... OE would be 3d6 in order and 4e would be array or point buy, as those are methods 1 & 2 in the PHB, and mathematically equal.

When I started playing, under AD&D 1E, we were using 4d6k3 but reroll all 1's. So, essentially, 4d5k3+3.

 

[CleverNickName]

I voted for the most recent method I used, because I'm all over the map depending on the campaign, the DM, and the system.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Solution: every player can reroll, regardless of the outcome, as many times as the person who rolled the lowest initial set decided to reroll until happy, taking the best set.

So if there is effectively unlimited rerolls, would it at that point be just easier to let the players assign whatever stats they want?

As much I dislike random character creation, I actually get the old school roll stats in order method. Then you are actually randomising what sort of character you get. But people rarely do that these days. They roll, usually with some mulligans, then they assign the stats how they see fit for their character concept. They probably won't generally assign them much differently than they would an array; best stat goes here, the second best there and so forth. So basically what you're randomising is not the concept, just the power of that concept. That seems like a really silly idea to me.

Now if you truly wanted to randomise the concept in 5e, much better way would be to choose your species, background, class and subclass at random.

 

[Reynard]

So if there is effectively unlimited rerolls, would it at that point be just easier to let the players assign whatever stats they want?

The only problem I was trying to solve was how one player might feel it unfair that they rolled middling but not bad enough for a mulligan, but the mulligan player ended up with a lucky run on their second try.

My attitude broadly is either roll or don't. If you do, keep the dice. If you don't, use the array. I usually let players make that decision after the dice are rolled i.e. the mulligan is just reverting to the array.

 

[Corinnguard]

I voted 4d6-L. I like the randomness. The result you roll up for each of your ability scores is determined by a number of things.

1. A one-handed roll or a two-handed roll.
2. Rolling each dice separately or rolling them all together.
3. The surface you roll the die on.
4. How dry your hands happen to be.
5. How distracted you happen to be at the time.

There's probably a number of other factors that could influence the roll of the dice.

I also like getting 3 odd rolls and 3 even rolls. As the +2 bonus works well your even rolls and the +1 bonus works well with the odd rolls.