D&D 5E Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats

[Caliban]

I don't know if it has been suggested. Heck I may have suggested it.

1) Come up with a character concept.
2) Try to imagine the stats this character would have.
2.5) Lower the stats to the bare minimum with which you can evolve into your vision.
3) Ask the DM (and other players) if you can use those stats.

That means no buying, no rolling, no excuses.

Are you kidding? That's just the beginning of the excuses.

"My concept is Thurgar Moradinson, an Outcast Mountain Dwarf Barbarian descended from an unbroken line of Legendary Dwarven Heroes dating back to when Moradin himself created the first member of his clan. Unfortunately his entire clan was slaughtered by orcs when he was a child, leaving him the sole survivor. Naturally he hates all orcs and half orcs. He's gonna need an 18 Str (+2 racial for 20) to show his innate strength (demonstrated by his ability to kill the orc who slew his mother as a child before he had to flee), an 18 Dex (demonstrated by his ability to evade and escape from the orcs after he avenged his mothers death), an 18 Con (+2 racial for a 20) due to his innate dwarven hardiness and growing up in the wilderness on his own. Oh, and an 18 Wisdom (because he ain't no fool), an 18 Intelligence (he had private tutors before the orcs came, and was considered a child prodigy), and an 18 Charisma - he's a natural leader of dwarves and is immediately respected by everyone)."

"Don't those seem a little high?"

"Don't stifle my creativity!"

 

[Hussar]

Personally, my absolute favorite Chargen system is a lifepath one. You choose, Traveller style, what your character did for a year, starting at, say, age 8, choose which table to roll on, and that table gives you a particular modifier to your stat (and leans you towards one class or another). Repeat until you get the character you want, and that's your final stats.

Poof, a chargen system that both gives us the mechanics AND the backstory of my character. Fantastic.

I've never really understood why no one has made one of these for D&D.

 

[Caliban]

Personally, my absolute favorite Chargen system is a lifepath one. You choose, Traveller style, what your character did for a year, starting at, say, age 8, choose which table to roll on, and that table gives you a particular modifier to your stat (and leans you towards one class or another). Repeat until you get the character you want, and that's your final stats.

Poof, a chargen system that both gives us the mechanics AND the backstory of my character. Fantastic.

I've never really understood why no one has made one of these for D&D.

I remember using a 3rd party supplement called Central Casting for that, years and years ago. You either died during your formative years or ended up with a weird hodge podge of bizarre events, special abilities, and extra skills.

[edit] Found it! https://endchan.xyz/.media/dd71ef18d9e682c294f84030104f2f28-applicationpdf

 

[Wiseblood]

Are you kidding? That's just the beginning of the excuses.

"My concept is Thurgar Moradinson, an Outcast Mountain Dwarf Barbarian descended from an unbroken line of Legendary Dwarven Heroes dating back to when Moradin himself created the first member of his clan. Unfortunately his entire clan was slaughtered by orcs when he was a child, leaving him the sole survivor. Naturally he hates all orcs and half orcs. He's gonna need an 18 Str (+2 racial for 20) to show his innate strength (demonstrated by his ability to kill the orc who slew his mother as a child before he had to flee), an 18 Dex (demonstrated by his ability to evade and escape from the orcs after he avenged his mothers death), an 18 Con (+2 racial for a 20) due to his innate dwarven hardiness and growing up in the wilderness on his own. Oh, and an 18 Wisdom (because he ain't no fool), an 18 Intelligence (he had private tutors before the orcs came, and was considered a child prodigy), and an 18 Charisma - he's a natural leader of dwarves and is immediately respected by everyone)."

"Don't those seem a little high?"

"Don't stifle my creativity!"

So you tried steps one and two but skipped 3 and 4.
Is everyone else playing Dieties and Demigods?

 

[Caliban]

So you tried steps one and two but skipped 3 and 4.
Is everyone else playing Dieties and Demigods?

A) There is no step 4 in your post.

B) I didn't skip a step. Step 3 was the last 2 lines of my post. (Really, the whole post is step 3 - the first paragraph is him giving the reasoning behind the stats, someone beginning to question him, and then his rebuttal. What I'm trying to say is gamers are terrible people and this is why we can't have nice things. )

 

[Maxperson]

@Caliban wrote:

Are you kidding? That's just the beginning of the excuses.

"My concept is Thurgar Moradinson, an Outcast Mountain Dwarf Barbarian descended from an unbroken line of Legendary Dwarven Heroes dating back to when Moradin himself created the first member of his clan. Unfortunately his entire clan was slaughtered by orcs when he was a child, leaving him the sole survivor. Naturally he hates all orcs and half orcs. He's gonna need an 18 Str (+2 racial for 20) to show his innate strength (demonstrated by his ability to kill the orc who slew his mother as a child before he had to flee), an 18 Dex (demonstrated by his ability to evade and escape from the orcs after he avenged his mothers death), an 18 Con (+2 racial for a 20) due to his innate dwarven hardiness and growing up in the wilderness on his own. Oh, and an 18 Wisdom (because he ain't no fool), an 18 Intelligence (he had private tutors before the orcs came, and was considered a child prodigy), and an 18 Charisma - he's a natural leader of dwarves and is immediately respected by everyone)."

"Don't those seem a little high?"

"Don't stifle my creativity!

Yeeeeaah, it's sort of assumed that the players are playing in good faith. Any putz who tried that would get kicked out of the game.

 

[Lanefan]

Here's another method. Roll 24d6 remove the lowest 6 die. Then create your stats using the 18 remaining dice, 3 die per stat.

That seems like it would yield higher average numbers than normal rolling.

I messed around with this a few weeks ago while at a session where someone else's character was off exploring and we were waiting. Quick thoughts:

Huge variance within each character if one simply takes the dice in descending order. Nearly always an 18, and nearly always a 6 or lower.

Pure average says you should get on 24d6 four occurrences of each number i.e. 4 sixes, 4 fives, etc., giving a raw average stat line of
6-6-6 = 18
6-5-5 = 16
5-5-4 = 14
4-4-4 = 12
3-3-3 = 9
3-2-2 = 7
(2-2-1-1-1-1 - discarded)

Average is 12.67, a bit higher than 4d6x1 (12.24).

Quite a bit of variance between the pseudo-characters I rolled up - one had 18-18-16 at the top end and another had a low end of something like 8-6-4.

One of the DMs I played with had everyone roll 4d6-L once, including him. There were 6 of us, then everyone used those 6 numbers. It's the only time I've used an array, and then only because it was 1) rolled, and 2) a good friend DMing.

I've also done this once, as the fastest way I could think of to bang out a table-ful of characters for ten not-very-sober players at a New Years' Eve party who suddenly decided to play a D&D game - I randomly rolled d10 until I got 6 different numbers, counted around the table and those people whose numbers came up got to roll dice for a stat. Everyone used the same numbers, rearranged to suit whatever class they were.

Oh, and how did I end up DMing this? Also by random roll. My specific intent was NOT to DM as I would have preferred to play (and chuck a non-DM into the DM's seat for a change!), but 11 people each rolled d20 and guess who rolled highest...

Lan-"dice, sometimes, are my worst enemy"-efan

 

[Yardiff]

Another way to do the 24d6 is one person, most likely the GM, rolls the dice once then the players build thier stats using the same 18 die pool.

 

[Lanefan]

Another way to do the 24d6 is one person, most likely the GM, rolls the dice once then the players build thier stats using the same 18 die pool.

Hmmm...I have to say this one has my attention.

However, please allow me to do what I do best and point out a flaw:

While this is fine for all-hands character generation at session 0, what happens three months in (or three minutes, more likely) when my character dies and I need another one; followed next week by Bob retiring his and trying again? Is the DM supposed to record the original 18 dice rolled at session 0 for use with all future characters?

Lanefan

 

[Hussar]

I remember using a 3rd party supplement called Central Casting for that, years and years ago. You either died during your formative years or ended up with a weird hodge podge of bizarre events, special abilities, and extra skills.

[edit] Found it! https://endchan.xyz/.media/dd71ef18d9e682c294f84030104f2f28-applicationpdf

Lord T'underin' Bajebbuz! That's a LOT of tables. Looks like a hell of a lot of fun.