MythandLore
First Post
Standard: 4d6 drop lowest, arrange in any order... Always.
What Ability Score Generation Method do you use?
Black Omega
First Post
Point buy, 32 points. With an option to instead roll the standard 4d6, drop the lowest. But if you roll badly you are stuck with the low stats.
Statistically, 4d6 Standard seemed to average out close to 32 points anyway.
Statistically, 4d6 Standard seemed to average out close to 32 points anyway.
Malin Genie
First Post
28 point buy works nicely for a low-powered campaign; 32 point buy for a higher one.
So far we've used standard 4d6, drop lowest.
But for my Scarred Lands campaign, I'll try a variant of the one used in Wulf Ratbane's story hour: the players get to trade cards that give +2 to stats between them.
Basically, everyone starts at 10 (before racial modifications), and have six cards that give +2 to the respective stat. The fighter wants high Str, so he trades his Wis and/or Cha for Str cards. I have two extra sets of cards for every three players that they can also trade, but no player can have more than eight stat cards - that's a total of +16 to divide between his stats.
Then they get to pick a "bonus feat" card - one per player, and they get to trade between them. The cards have things like "+2 to Fort saves," "start with a +1 magical weapon," "start with 500xp," that kind of things.
And finally I give them a random card with a "+2 to two related skills," to add some variation to their skills.
This might seem a bit high-powered for starting characters, but they'll earn it, trust me.
I haven't tried this system at the table yet, so it'll probably be modified.
But for my Scarred Lands campaign, I'll try a variant of the one used in Wulf Ratbane's story hour: the players get to trade cards that give +2 to stats between them.
Basically, everyone starts at 10 (before racial modifications), and have six cards that give +2 to the respective stat. The fighter wants high Str, so he trades his Wis and/or Cha for Str cards. I have two extra sets of cards for every three players that they can also trade, but no player can have more than eight stat cards - that's a total of +16 to divide between his stats.
Then they get to pick a "bonus feat" card - one per player, and they get to trade between them. The cards have things like "+2 to Fort saves," "start with a +1 magical weapon," "start with 500xp," that kind of things.
And finally I give them a random card with a "+2 to two related skills," to add some variation to their skills.
This might seem a bit high-powered for starting characters, but they'll earn it, trust me.
I haven't tried this system at the table yet, so it'll probably be modified.
Grandpa
First Post
I always make up something awful on the fly. Recently, I decided on a combined stat bonus (was +6), then let everyone roll standard (4d6 drop lowest). Any low/high scores were fudged to be within 1 point of this bonus (+5 to +7). Then everyone rolled 1d6 to see how many of their points could be "pushed" from one stat to another.
Pretty random, possibly retarded system, but the characters are all within a similar power range and they got to have some fun min-maxing with their "flex" points.
Pretty random, possibly retarded system, but the characters are all within a similar power range and they got to have some fun min-maxing with their "flex" points.
Usually we use standard 4D6, drop lowest, arrange freely.
For my epic campaign I used 5D6, drop the two lowest, reroll everything if average below 14. In this campaign two of the players wanted to choose stats, I let them do that as long as the average was between 14 and 15. They also roll twice for hitpoint, choose the highest. This produces quite high-powered PCs, I usually throw CRs two levels higher than usual in order to give them a challenge. This party (6 PCs and 1 follower) took on 2 leucrotta at 2nd level and beat them without any PC deaths (but it was awfully close).
I'm toying with a low-power (3D6 - no reroll) campaign, where I can focus a bit on the weaknesses of the PCs as well, it'll be a different experience.
It's important to remember there is no universally right method, only different methods that produce different experiences.
.Ziggy
For my epic campaign I used 5D6, drop the two lowest, reroll everything if average below 14. In this campaign two of the players wanted to choose stats, I let them do that as long as the average was between 14 and 15. They also roll twice for hitpoint, choose the highest. This produces quite high-powered PCs, I usually throw CRs two levels higher than usual in order to give them a challenge. This party (6 PCs and 1 follower) took on 2 leucrotta at 2nd level and beat them without any PC deaths (but it was awfully close).
I'm toying with a low-power (3D6 - no reroll) campaign, where I can focus a bit on the weaknesses of the PCs as well, it'll be a different experience.
It's important to remember there is no universally right method, only different methods that produce different experiences.
.Ziggy
I prefer the 4d6 drop the lowest to the point systems. In the first place because 8 is the minimum with the point system and in the second place because the point system greatly favours non-humans. Besides, a bit of randomness can be fun. I do make sure, the PCs are more or less of equal power by lowering attributes if the plusses become too big in comparison to the average. Sometimes I also raise 1 attribute if a player rolls just above the required minimum.
