D&D 5E Why I Am Starting to Prefer 4d6 Drop the Lowest Over the Default Array.

[Salamandyr]

More and more I'm leaning to just letting the PC's have whatever stats they want what fits their characters. Even all 18's doesn't really skew the challenge all that much.

 

[JonnyP71]

I prefer rolling. My players prefer rolling. In our last 5E campaign 1 player got 3 16s with the other 3 stats in the 11-13 range, another player rolled 13/13/11/10/8/7 - the other 2 players got stats similar to the standard array. It didn't matter. There was no 'stat-envy', in fact the player of the PC with the lowest stats was probably the one most invested in his character in the whole group.

It's only an issue in 5E if the players make it one.

 

[S'mon]

There's a lot to be said for 4d6-in-order. I was sceptical about allowing rolling in 5e but my latest group insisted on it and I like the result. But 4d6-arrange is just variable point buy, and it sucks to be the guy with the fewest points.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

When I DM, I like 4d6 drop the lowest, minimum of 72. Place where you want. Another interesting variant is the 6 by 6 grid, take any column, row, or diagonal.

I want my PCs to be heroic, but I also like to run High Heroic Fantasy campaigns (Eberron, Dragonlance). This may not work if you want a gritty realism (Dark Sun).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I agree that allowing someone to start with a 20 is too strong though as they'll basically have the equivalent of a permanent +2 weapon compared to other players with that same stat that are created through point buy.

It's not permanent. It's only until level 6 or 8, when the other character will catch up in their main stat and the character who started with the 20 will be forced to boost their less useful stats instead.

 

[Sacrosanct]

About a year to two ago, I ran a sample size of 4d6 drop lowest compared to array. This was the result. Funny enough, the average was exactly the same as the array. It's almost like they knew what they were doing...





Which goes to my original post earlier. Every time I hear "4d6 is awesome because here's a list of examples with the stats higher!", I immediately think there is fudging of the numbers going on, because statistically, you'd have just as many PCs with stats lower than array as well, but we hardly ever see them, do we? Funny how when players bring their 4d6 PCs to the the table, nearly all of them have better than average stats lol. Yes, this has been going on since day 1. I am positive it's, "I don't like this set, so I"ll just reroll until I get stats I like." And thus it shouldn't be much of a shocker when someone says they like 4d6 better if that's what they are doing.

 

[MiraMels]

Put simply you kind of want 4 stats 14 or higher or a 14 dex with medium armor or 15 strength in heavy armor.

Four stats at fourteen or higher? I haven't had difficulty hitting those benchmarks with point-buy.

With 27 point-buy, a human can start with 16 / 14 / 14 / 14 / 12 / 9.


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[FormerlyHemlock]

About a year to two ago, I ran a sample size of 4d6 drop lowest compared to array. This was the result. Funny enough, the average was exactly the same as the array. It's almost like they knew what they were doing...


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Which goes to my original post earlier. Every time I hear "4d6 is awesome because here's a list of examples with the stats higher!", I immediately think there is fudging of the numbers going on, because statistically, you'd have just as many PCs with stats lower than array as well, but we hardly ever see them, do we? Funny how when players bring their 4d6 PCs to the the table, nearly all of them have better than average stats lol. Yes, this has been going on since day 1. I am positive it's, "I don't like this set, so I"ll just reroll until I get stats I like." And thus it shouldn't be much of a shocker when someone says they like 4d6 better if that's what they are doing.

That spreadsheet you post actually proves the point about point buy being worse than rolled stats: if I'm reading it correctly, you rolled 15 times, and 8 of those arrays are better than anything you can get with point buy. (They have at least one 16+.) Only one of your results is in Moon Druid territory (the first 67: 9, 12, 10, 13, 10, 13 has no ability scores better than +2 even after racials are considered).

8 better-than-point-buy results to 1 worse-than-point-buy result casts a lot of doubt on your prior claim that:

So you're preferring 4d6 because you're ignoring the lower rolls and only taking the higher ones over an array? Big shocker there. I say ignoring, because almost all of your examples are dependent on statistically higher than normal rolls. So you're either ignoring low rolls, or cheating, because there's no way statistically you would have the majority of your PCs having stats be higher than array or point buy. Statistically, you'd have just as many PCs with lower stats as you do with higher stats, and yet your examples are almost always higher. So either you have a lot of moon druids in your group, or someone is fibbing the dice rolls.

*Note, this isn't meant to pick on you as a new thing, per se, because after 35 years of gaming, it's always interesting to see how everyone always has higher stats for their PCs than what the math would suggest.

Judging by your own spreadsheet (and I'm willing to, because the results look fairly typical IME), the actual proportion of Moon Druids you'd expect to see is 1 in 15, maybe 2 if someone has a thing for Moon Druids for their own sake. Not "just as many" as the high rolls, and not exactly "a lot" of Moon Druids.

Consider that next time you are tempted to hurl accusations of cheating and "immediately think there is fudging of the numbers going on."

 

[TheCosmicKid]

About a year to two ago, I ran a sample size of 4d6 drop lowest compared to array. This was the result. Funny enough, the average was exactly the same as the array. It's almost like they knew what they were doing...

Although oddly, when you total them up through point-buy value, 4d6k3 does result in a "better" average array than the standard. The point-buy chart's weights may be off.

EDIT: Ninjaed by Hemlock. Yeah, I'm going to crunch some numbers on point buy when I get a little time.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Consider that next time you are tempted to hurl accusations of cheating and "immediately think there is fudging of the numbers going on."

I think maybe you need to look at that table again, and look at the examples of stats people have been using. How often do you see three stats of 16 or higher in that table? Or two stats higher than 16 but none lower than 10? There's only one out of all of them that has two stats above 16, and yet, when people always talk about their stat rolled PCs, they always seem to have at least two. That's my point. And it very well does merit accusations of fudging when 90% of the examples people use statistically should only be 5%.