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

[Umbran]

These days, I'm happiest with point-buy or standard array. It sometimes isn't as "interesting", but I'm happy to lose the imbalance rolling sometimes creates.

 

[ichabod]

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.

Okay, but that's just a feature of rolling. You have that whether you have a reroll rule or not. In fact, a reroll rule will lower the potential disparity by lowering the variance of the rolls.

 

[Parmandur]

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.

Yes, Xanathar's Guide has rules for that.

 

[Greenwheat]

Do you ALWAYS ALWAYS keep the first set you roll, or do you have some kind of "oh that's okay, roll again" when you inevitably roll crappy?

I find it interesting when people have '4d6, keep 3' rules, coupled with 'if you roll lower than 72, you can reroll'. Remember, 4d6 keep 3 is supposed to simulate being above average already; it's in comparison to a 'normal' - i.e. non-adventuring - person having 3d6 ability scores.

The expected total of six rolled ability scores is 73, so the reroll rule basically dictates that PCs are above average for the above-average roll.If you're going to have a reroll rule, it ought to include a ceiling as well as a floor. Given that the intent is to be better than a 3d6 character, you could quite reasonably set the floor at 63, with a symmetrical ceiling at 83. Roll too high, and you need to reroll for worse abilities!

There are other ways to bound it, and other ways to avoid wild power discrepancies between characters when rolling - but really, if you don't want to take the stats you rolled, just don't roll stats.

4d6-L arranged to taste. If your stats don’t meet the standard array you can take it.

This is almost what I'd do for rolled stats in a campaign, except that players get to roll once, then pick between taht array and the standard array. It's possible someone wants to play a character that's seriously MAD, so would rather have three excellent rolls and three abysmal rolls than the standard array.

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.

One method I've suggested for 5e is to lock in your character origin (race/species/lineage, depending on the book), including any ASIs that come from it. Then roll 4d6 drop lowest in order, and lock that in. Then pick a class that sort of works, ish, with the character you've 'born' into the world.

 

[plisnithus8]

My favorite way is to have each player roll 4d6 drop the lowest so that we have 6 numbers so sometimes I role too or have a player or 2 roll twice. Then the players have the same array to place on whichever abilities they want individually.

 

[TwoSix]

My current go-to is fantasy stat draft, example here.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/help-playtest-my-fantasy-stat-draft.684415/post-8471947

 

[Reynard]

My current go-to is fantasy stat draft, example here.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/help-playtest-my-fantasy-stat-draft.684415/post-8471947

Interesting. I might try something like that the next time I do a thing.

 

[TwoSix]

Interesting. I might try something like that the next time I do a thing.

I will say that I've done it once so far for one of my IRL groups, and the response was excellent. Two of my players plan on also using it on their next turn as DM.

 

[Reynard]

I will say that I've done it once so far for one of my IRL groups, and the response was excellent. Two of my players plan on also using it on their next turn as DM.

I feel like it would be a good fit for my potential city based campaign, so that everyone can aim for the niche they want.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

The system Dragonbane (which is a translation of the Swedish rpg Drakar & Demoner) uses a method I have never seen before, which feels like a modern twist on stat rolling.

Step 1: Roll 4d6 drop lowest.
Step 2: Assign that stat to any ability score that has no score assigned to it already.
Step 3: Go back to step 1, unless all scores have been assigned
Step 4: Swap two ability scores if you want