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

[FormerlyHemlock]

1st I DM every Tuesday night (except the last week of the month when I play) and I GM 2 weeks on 2 weeks off on saterdays (playing on the off weeks, so I run more often then I play...

second if we roll 1d10 for damage 100 times it will even out, but that isn't the same as 1 set of rolls commanding the entire campaign.

If I generate 3d6 in order 18,18,18,16,16,17 it doesn't matter what the average is, or if I had the opportunity to roll bad... what matters is as my reward I get to play a more powerful character then someone who rolls 11,13,8,12,7,14 those stats alone are unplayble, but it defiantly isn't fair to make someone play with one over the other

Bolded point is key. In a campaign where you expect to only ever play one PC, the roll distribution is of secondary importance compared to the particular roll you got. In a campaign with many PCs per player the opposite holds: your 18/14/12/12/12/6 character is pretty great but ultimately just one guy, and he can die like anybody else.

Incidentally: if you roll poor stats, make a Diviner or a Cleric. Both can be great support characters, and the high-stats guy will be very glad to have you around.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Bolded point is key. In a campaign where you expect to only ever play one PC, the roll distribution is of secondary importance compared to the particular roll you got. In a campaign with many PCs per player the opposite holds: your 18/14/12/12/12/6 character is pretty great but ultimately just one guy, and he can die like anybody else.

Incidentally: if you roll poor stats, make a Diviner or a Cleric. Both can be great support characters, and the high-stats guy will be very glad to have you around.

the problem is we for the most part play 1 character for the entire campaign, we have very few character deaths, so what you make might be with you for a year or more. I played a 3.0 character for almost 2 years every Friday night... if I wasn't happy with that character it would have been torture.

I only ever played with 1 DM (and we will not be playing with him ever again) who had a high turn over rate, and in that game stats didn't matter at all... we would have 7 or 8 characters... but the story was impossible to follow. when we gave up on his campaign not only did none of us have character from the first game, but none of us had our 3rd characters still alive...

 

[bedir than]

Incidentally: if you roll poor stats, make a Diviner or a Cleric. Both can be great support characters, and the high-stats guy will be very glad to have you around.

Or something completely quirky and double-down on the role play. Do things that earn inspiration so you can help out a bit more than your array says. Be willing to avoid conflict.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Or something completely quirky and double-down on the role play. Do things that earn inspiration so you can help out a bit more than your array says. Be willing to avoid conflict.

Yes, that can work too.

It depends on the DM and campaign style, but in my view there is always a niche for every character, even if that niche is just "the guy who is willing to pull three cards from a Deck of Many Things because he has nothing to lose" and "the guy who is willing to climb into the mysterious machine and press the button" and "the guy who is willing to wade through the waist-deep underground lake with unknown things in it." High-stats guys tend to avoid those kinds of risks IME (because players don't want to lose their outlier) so they don't get the rewards either (roughly paraphrased: "When you wake up from the mysterious machine, you find that you are now a bug man! Natural AC 15 + Dex, and you have no eyes any more; blindsight out to 120' and no vision beyond that radius.").

BTW, we are neighbors. I'm in Issaquah.

 

[Hussar]

I saw a PC roll this yesterday, 4d6 drop the lowest.

11
13
13
13
15
17

He kept the PC.

Why would you think he wouldn't? That's considerably better than point buy.

 

[Hussar]

If stats don't matter and you like random generation, how come nobody uses a stat gen system like 3d6 in order? After all, it's about the randomness right? Why the insistence on using systems that usually give higher results than point buy?

 

[Sunseeker]

If stats don't matter and you like random generation, how come nobody uses a stat gen system like 3d6 in order? After all, it's about the randomness right? Why the insistence on using systems that usually give higher results than point buy?

Some tables do, but at the same time, what are you going to tell the guy who doesn't want to play the 6,7,8,5,4,7 character they just rolled out? Sorry, play it or get the heck out and never come back until our game is finished? You know he's going to hate it. You know he's going to suicide. That's not random, that's even worse than predictable, it's boring, it's annoying, it's insulting, its antithetical to fun.

Does anyone actually treat potential players at character generation that way? I'd imagine anyone doing so would go through players almost as fast as they went through characters.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If stats don't matter and you like random generation, how come nobody uses a stat gen system like 3d6 in order?

Have done, as recently as 3.5Ed.

 

[billd91]

If stats don't matter and you like random generation, how come nobody uses a stat gen system like 3d6 in order?

The same reason nobody plays with a 5 point point-buy - sure, you can craft your PC's stats, but with that low a value, who wants to do so and then go adventuring? 4d6 drop lowest and arrange as desired produces the same general effect as a higher point buy - creating an adventurer-quality PC.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

If stats don't matter and you like random generation, how come nobody uses a stat gen system like 3d6 in order? After all, it's about the randomness right? Why the insistence on using systems that usually give higher results than point buy?

Alternately, why did they set up point buy such that it gives worse results than the standard stat generation method? Point buy (PHB version) would be more attractive if it weren't deliberately gimped. It's almost as if random generation is supposed to be preferred.