D&D 4E How Badly Do Randomly Rolled Stats Affect 4E Math?

[eamon]

According to my analysis, rolled characters are significantly weaker than point-bought characters on average.

This has to do with the fact that the highest score or two are almost solely responsible for the majority of a characters power - and in point buy, you're able to afford two one or two fairly high stats reliably, whereas you cannot when rolling stats.

On the other hand, rolled stats tend to have more slightly-above-average scores (like 13's and 14's), which look great but don't matter as much in practice.

Finally, having above average or below average scores does not greatly impact character power, as long as the primary stat is reasonable. A character having only 18's will not outclass (in terms of power) one that has 18/14/11, though of course such an absurd stat array will be more powerful.

In short: it's not that important, and you should be more worried about low primaries that high tertiary stats.

In almost all cases, as long as characters have a pre-racial 16 in their primary stat and a reasonable race/class combo, the characters will be fairly balanced amongst each other (which is really what matters).

 

[nightwyrm]

It will be somewhat sub-par, but then again with a racial boost to the 14 you have a viable attack stat. Make the character a bard and just leverage the fact that you can perform most skill checks at reasonable competence if you focus on the utility aspects of the class. Pick up a bow to use as an implement and you can drop some weaplement goodness on that, which helps some too. Its never going to be a combat powerhouse but as a leader you can do useful stuff, make credible if not spectacular attacks when needed, and enjoy your vast skill versatility (which is pretty easy to supplement, you have good enough stats for most MC feats and you can certainly take JoaT and even some skill focus for stuff you really want to do extra well. I think if the player is knowledgeable on 4e builds they'll be able to have fun with the character as long as they don't pine too much for high damage output.

Yeah, you could compensate by taking a class that doesn't depend too much on always hitting and taking a race with the right stat boost, but it does tend to limit your options.

 

[keterys]

According to my analysis, rolled characters are significantly weaker than point-bought characters on average.

Yeah... as far as I can tell, people who roll up characters almost never have results in any sort of expected deviation. I'd bump the expected average about, oh, two points.

 

[Solvarn]

Yeah... as far as I can tell, people who roll up characters almost never have results in any sort of expected deviation. I'd bump the expected average about, oh, two points.

I've never played in a campaign where someone was saddled with really crappy ability scores. Most of the time the person re-rolled the whole array.

Essentially the deviation is skewed because people are more likely to accept beter stats than worse ones.

The true random method would be 3d6 for each ability score, and based on your ability scores, choose a race/class that works based on the ability scores. Cute and anachronistic but hardly useful for a 4E game.

Any other methods, 4d6, drop 1, allocate numbers to abilities, etc. insert a random element but aren't truly random.

 

[keterys]

Yep, and some people who randomly roll really want an 18, so somehow they roll randomly until they roll an 18, and _then_ start rolling the rest of the array. And some people do 4d6 drop the lowest... roll until happy. Or...

All I'm saying is that in this case reality differs from math, and it's not cause gamers are 'lucky'.

 

[Crothian]

Yep, and some people who randomly roll really want an 18, so somehow they roll randomly until they roll an 18, and _then_ start rolling the rest of the array. And some people do 4d6 drop the lowest... roll until happy. Or...

All I'm saying is that in this case reality differs from math, and it's not cause gamers are 'lucky'.

It sounds like because they are cheaters. Reality is different from the math in these cases because the parameters you are basing the math on are not the same ones people are using in reality.

 

[renau1g]

My group does 4d6 dropping lowest. It works fine for us. Nobody rolls ahead of time, we all make characters and have a whole session mostly just doing that and hanging out. Everyone gets one set of rolls. If someone ends up with highest stat below 14, they can re-roll their highest roll until they get above a 14.

We had one PC with the highest stat of 15, but they were fine with it.

To those who call roling stats antiquated, you can't tell me you don't enjoy the visceral thrill of throwing down the 6-sided dice and seeing it come up 3 6's? I've played since 2nd edition and this is still one of the most enjoyable parts of the game. That said our group's a bit different than most I think. We put the races and classes in a hat (or box or whatever) and then each player draws two of them, decides on one of them and puts the other back in the hat.

We've had some intereting combinations this way, our halfling fighter was great! A hero of the shire (even though we don't play in LoTR-land, my wife had it as her inspiration)...

Again, we have little desire in optimizing and instead just enjoy the hanging out and playing. My encounters with them are far easier than most groups I'm sure

 

[Solvarn]

It sounds like because they are cheaters.

Burn them, burn them all!!

 

[Solvarn]

Awesome. In the end, the best method is the method that is going to result in the most fun for your particular group.

 

[Zaran]

My biggest problem with the point buy as is is that you only get to have one stat below 10 and none below 8. Low stats are a thing of the past, which means that all the fun of overcoming (or role-playing) bad stats is gone too. It's not a major thing but it's disappointing nonetheless.

In my opinion, 4e stats are a bad way to benchmark your roleplaying no matter what system you use in getting them. A 20 Str does not mean the same thing it did in other editions. It really just means you fight well. You have to suspend belief when you start talking about your main attributes being in the 20s by paragon tier. So having an 8 minimum Attribute shouldn't effect your roleplay. It just minimizes the mechanical penalty.