D&D 5E A Proper Ability Score Generation Preference Poll

Why not? If he started as rogue, he'd be no problem. There's no minimums for your base class.

And no, [MENTION=6789021]Yardiff[/MENTION], that's not pulling out my "against type" character. I POSTED my entire group for perusal and apparently that's not a good enough test. When I talked about my ranger, the guesses netted one out of three of the posited stats. ((Oh, no one cares about the other three, so, there goes the whole "I can guess your stats thing".))

I mean, is a hunter ranger with sharpshooter actually playing against type? Seriously? I dump statted Con, both for the in game reason that the character was quite young and the out of game meta-thinking that my archer character isn't going to get hit much anyway, why bother with Con?

Then I got told that Alertness was a totally out of place feat. Umm, what? Largely guaranteed advantage on 2-3 attacks in the first round of combat with Sharpshooter? That's out of place? Plus cannot be surprised? Dunno about your games, but, that's come up more than once in mine.

But, hey, the goalposts are on roller skates anyway, so, this conversation is largely pointless. The claim was, "I can ALWAYS guess the point buy value character's stats". Now it's "Well, I can guess the top three stats, if the character is created the sole way that I would optimize that character". I mean, FFS, I GAVE the arrays for five characters and no one is apparently able to match the stats to the classes. That's a heck of a lot easier than trying to actually guess the stats. And, because it's posted, there's no way anyone could be cheating.

But, then, if you can't cheat, then you can't whine about people lying and cheating when they smack you down for making ridiculous claims that you can't back up. Must be nice to be in a position where you ensure that you "win" on the Internet instead of actually discussing with any intellectual honesty.

Hussar said:

Why not? If he started as rogue, he'd be no problem. There's no minimums for your base class.

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Um, I'm afraid there are - if you want to multi-class. You have to meet the minimum stats for both the class you start in, and the class you are switching too.

It's easy to miss, but the rule is there.

Yardiff said:

Oofta said:

Nope. 16, 12, 16, 10, 14, 8. He inherited his father's physical might and endurance (high strength, constitution) but was wise enough to know he could never inspire his people like his father did (high wisdom, low charisma). So while he was the noble born son of a king, he spent as much time as possible learning how to become a rogue. There's a lot more to it, but you get the drift. He did take a few levels of fighter, but that was so he could add his strength bonus to his secondary attack with two weapon fighting; he's primarily a rogue.

Backstory and character is more important to me than optimization.

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Why is it that when people say they 'most likely' could guess at a characters ability scores based off class and standard array that other people pull out their against type/subpar characters to prove them wrong?

So this character is a 'rogue' who has also taken a couple fighter levels? You know that with those ability scores this character not a legal character via the PHB?

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I increased my dex to 14 at 4th level and multiclassed at 5th. I wasn't originally planning on multiclassing, it just kind of made sense for the story.
Was it a suboptimal build? Maybe. At 20th level (soon to retire ) I never did get around to increasing his dex above 14 but he's been a blast to play. Mostly because of his story/background/mannerisms/etc.

My point is that I build characters based on what makes sense to me for the character and what will be fun to play. Same way that for my next character (a half-elven fighter) has a high charisma because I want him to be the charming rogue type on the run from his evil father who is always wearing different disguises to avoid notice.

Charisma doesn't really help a fighter much but the thought of an occasionally truth-challenged diplomat sounded fun and I enjoy front line fighter types. I think it's one of the strengths of 5E that I can build this kind of character by giving him a custom background (based on Charlatan).

Arilyn said:

Rolling can be fun but in a crunchy game like DnD, where balance is endlessly debated, and bounded accuracy is touted as the game's saviour, does random rolling make sense, or is it just tradition? I mean, how can you fret that ability X is OP, if you let dice roll as they will during character creation?

One time I rolled 15 16 16 17 17 18. Everyone else was lucky to get a 12. I volunteered to scrap my "Conan", cause it wouldn't have been fair. GM would have let me keep it, cause we all rolled in front of each other. Ignoring fairness, those stats wouldn't have fit my character concept anyway.

So, yeah, arrays or point buy make better game sense, although a better point buy in 5e is needed. And as I mentioned before you need lots of arrays to choose from, at least 10. If you want randomness, roll for your array, and then you could even randomly assign numbers to stats.

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As I've said before, this is an example of a poor GM. PCs are supposed to be from the top 10% of the lands population so poor stats are not acceptable.

Oofta said:

I increased my dex to 14 at 4th level and multiclassed at 5th. I wasn't originally planning on multiclassing, it just kind of made sense for the story.
Was it a suboptimal build? Maybe. At 20th level (soon to retire ) I never did get around to increasing his dex above 14 but he's been a blast to play. Mostly because of his story/background/mannerisms/etc.

My point is that I build characters based on what makes sense to me for the character and what will be fun to play. Same way that for my next character (a half-elven fighter) has a high charisma because I want him to be the charming rogue* type on the run from his evil father who is always wearing different disguises to avoid notice.

Charisma doesn't really help a fighter much but the thought of an occasionally truth-challenged diplomat sounded fun and I enjoy front line fighter types. I think it's one of the strengths of 5E that I can build this kind of character by giving him a custom background (based on Charlatan).

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*EDIT: just to be clear that's "rogue" not "Rogue". This is going to be a strength based fighter with 16, 10, 15, 10, 8, 16. Strong and charming but not particularly wise (leaps before he looks type).

Yardiff said:

As I've said before, this is an example of a poor GM. PCs are supposed to be from the top 10% of the lands population so poor stats are not acceptable.

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How is it a sign of a poor GM that people happened to roll poorly? If you don't want PCs that risk substandard ability scores, don't randomize the ability score.

Oofta said:

I think something people miss - or ignore - is that having a character that is significantly more powerful than other PCs is just as unwanted for many people as having someone that is significantly weaker.

All of the possible options that add up to 27 point buy...
[SBLOCK]
13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12
13, 13, 13, 13, 12, 11
13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 10
14, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12
14, 13, 12, 12, 12, 11
14, 13, 13, 12, 11, 11
14, 13, 13, 12, 12, 10
14, 13, 13, 13, 11, 10
14, 13, 13, 13, 12, 9
14, 13, 13, 13, 13, 8
14, 14, 12, 11, 11, 11
14, 14, 12, 12, 11, 10
14, 14, 12, 12, 12, 9
14, 14, 13, 11, 11, 10
14, 14, 13, 12, 10, 10
14, 14, 13, 12, 11, 9
14, 14, 13, 12, 12, 8
14, 14, 13, 13, 10, 9
14, 14, 13, 13, 11, 8
14, 14, 14, 10, 10, 10
14, 14, 14, 11, 10, 9
14, 14, 14, 11, 11, 8
14, 14, 14, 12, 9, 9
14, 14, 14, 12, 10, 8
14, 14, 14, 13, 9, 8
15, 12, 12, 12, 11, 11
15, 12, 12, 12, 12, 10
15, 13, 12, 11, 11, 11
15, 13, 12, 12, 11, 10
15, 13, 12, 12, 12, 9
15, 13, 13, 11, 11, 10
15, 13, 13, 12, 10, 10
15, 13, 13, 12, 11, 9
15, 13, 13, 12, 12, 8
15, 13, 13, 13, 10, 9
15, 13, 13, 13, 11, 8
15, 14, 11, 11, 11, 10
15, 14, 12, 11, 10, 10
15, 14, 12, 11, 11, 9
15, 14, 12, 12, 10, 9
15, 14, 12, 12, 11, 8
15, 14, 13, 10, 10, 10
15, 14, 13, 11, 10, 9
15, 14, 13, 11, 11, 8
15, 14, 13, 12, 9, 9
15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8
15, 14, 13, 13, 9, 8
15, 14, 14, 10, 9, 9
15, 14, 14, 10, 10, 8
15, 14, 14, 11, 9, 8
15, 14, 14, 12, 8, 8
15, 15, 11, 10, 10, 10
15, 15, 11, 11, 10, 9
15, 15, 11, 11, 11, 8
15, 15, 12, 10, 10, 9
15, 15, 12, 11, 9, 9
15, 15, 12, 11, 10, 8
15, 15, 12, 12, 9, 8
15, 15, 13, 10, 9, 9
15, 15, 13, 10, 10, 8
15, 15, 13, 11, 9, 8
15, 15, 13, 12, 8, 8
15, 15, 14, 9, 9, 8
15, 15, 14, 10, 8, 8
15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8
[/SBLOCK]

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They don't miss or ignore it (I think), its an outlier not a norm. Unless your saying that this is a norm for entire community?

Yardiff said:

They don't miss or ignore it (I think), its an outlier not a norm. Unless your saying that this is a norm for entire community?

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[MENTION=6816042]Arilyn[/MENTION] said she didn't want a PC more powerful than the rest of the group, which is something I personally witnessed the last time I played in a game where we rolled for ability scores. I know I wouldn't want to play someone with significantly better ability scores, nor would my wife.

That's not a huge sample size, but I know other people on various threads have posted a similar sentiment.

Oofta said:

I increased my dex to 14 at 4th level and multiclassed at 5th. I wasn't originally planning on multiclassing, it just kind of made sense for the story.
Was it a suboptimal build? Maybe. At 20th level (soon to retire ) I never did get around to increasing his dex above 14 but he's been a blast to play. Mostly because of his story/background/mannerisms/etc.

My point is that I build characters based on what makes sense to me for the character and what will be fun to play. Same way that for my next character (a half-elven fighter) has a high charisma because I want him to be the charming rogue type on the run from his evil father who is always wearing different disguises to avoid notice.

Charisma doesn't really help a fighter much but the thought of an occasionally truth-challenged diplomat sounded fun and I enjoy front line fighter types. I think it's one of the strengths of 5E that I can build this kind of character by giving him a custom background (based on Charlatan).

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I get that Oofta but just because some people, like you, play more for character reasons you should at least admit that ALOT of characters are built to be the best for their class. A lot of people want to be good at their class abilities and using standard array that, for the most part, limits stat placement. In my opinion this is why people (maybe a lot of people) say the standard array, and to some extend point buy, can look pretty cookie cutter.

Oofta said:

How is it a sign of a poor GM that people happened to roll poorly? If you don't want PCs that risk substandard ability scores, don't randomize the ability score.

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PCs are supposed to a lot better then average stat wise then non-PC characters so telling people they have to play character with overall subpar stats is being a bad GM.