D&D 5E How do you generate ability scores for PCs?

[The Human Target]

So many people use such elaborate dice rolling systems just to end up with decent, fair characters.

 

[ChrisCarlson]

I know others have done it, and I keep threatening to as well, to just let my players pick whatever starting scores they think makes sense for their characters.

 

[The Human Target]

My current group likes high stats and since stats really don't matter, I go with it.

The end result is nowhere near the same. The high int fighter will be different from the low int fighter who is different from the high charisma fighter, and so on. Cookie cutter characters come from arrays and point buy due to both the placement and similarity of numbers across the board. Simply having a high prime stat isn't nearly enough to produce a cookie cutter environment.

So ability scores don't matter except they really do matter and point buy/arrays make characters cookie cutter because of that?

 

[MechaPilot]

Huh, okay. Why not just avoid the discarding of six entirely? Then grabbing exactly 3-per-stat can allow for potentially lower desired scores by choosing smaller results as needed. Just struck me as a little odd the way you worded it, is all. "Klunky," may be the word I'm looking for. YMMV, one supposes. <shrug>

It's been my experience that most players don't have a concept that requires them to pick lower scores. Consequently, they're usually perfectly happy dropping their six lowest rolls out of the 24d6. The "assign no more than three dice per stat rule" is really intended more for preventing the abuse of my already lenient system than anything else. However, if a player did have a concept that required a low score in a specific stat, they can choose to assign only one or two dice to that score instead of three.

 

[dmsabbath]

re ability rolls

It's been my experience that most players don't have a concept that requires them to pick lower scores. Consequently, they're usually perfectly happy dropping their six lowest rolls out of the 24d6. The "assign no more than three dice per stat rule" is really intended more for preventing the abuse of my already lenient system than anything else. However, if a player did have a concept that required a low score in a specific stat, they can choose to assign only one or two dice to that score instead of three.

personally we roll 3d6 twice per ability works for us

 

[ChrisCarlson]

It's been my experience that most players don't have a concept that requires them to pick lower scores. Consequently, they're usually perfectly happy dropping their six lowest rolls out of the 24d6. The "assign no more than three dice per stat rule" is really intended more for preventing the abuse of my already lenient system than anything else. However, if a player did have a concept that required a low score in a specific stat, they can choose to assign only one or two dice to that score instead of three.

Oh, I get it. I totally understand everything about how you do it. I was just getting at the "inelegance" of telling someone to take 18 discrete numbers, dividing them into six groups, but not exceeding three per pile. It's the "no more than" part that hints at some subtlety perhaps being missed. Because the math makes it a given that each will have three and only three. Unless, as I said, someone wants to discard additional results to leave themselves less than 18 to pull from. But then, the rule did not say to remove a minimum of six from the 24 results generated. Only six exactly. So, again, as a player I'd be asking what underlying feature am I failing to grasp that would require you to tell me "no more than three" of the 18 need to be divided among my six ability scores.

 

[Erik Westmarch]

I just let people roll dice.

Why?

1 - It's more fun. Just get out the dice and see what happens.

2 - 5E has a loose enough game balance that high or low stats doesn't really matter that much.

3 - We don't Min/Max/Powergame in my game.

 

[Erik Westmarch]

I did have a system I used for 3E that I thought was a pretty fun compromise between rolling dice and point buy. It's dealing cards.

Give players cards. You can do 18 cards of 1-6, 12 cards of 2-9, or something else. Whatever you want, as long as the highest result of dealing either 2 or 3 cars sums up to 18.

Then deal the cards to your stats, in order. This way the stats are sort of random, but also no one has better or worse results than anyone else. You'll either get a bunch of average stats or a mix of high and low ones.

I'd also allow you to switch any two results, once. So if you really wanted to play a certain class you could swap the highest roll into your primary stat. But other than that you had to take what you got from the in-order deal. I liked it as a DM because it forced people to play PCs they wouldn't have "designed", but ended up being fun.

 

[Maxperson]

One of my pet peeves is people stating that their opinion is a "fact". It's not. It's your personal observation and your opinion.

You've had multiple people post now that they don't see it. I certainly don't see it in any of my games.

You do see people following certain patterns - people are going to assign ability scores to what make the most sense for the class of characters (or picking a class that will play to the strength of their ability scores). That's all.

But even if people tend to have similar stats (an assumption I don't agree with), so what?

If you can't see that it's a fact that everyone using the exact same numbers to build classes that use the same primary stats is an environment that encourages cookie cutter stats, I really don't know what to tell you. You have blinders on for sure.

Multiple people positing that their groups don't do that is like them being one of the less common rainy/cloudy days in California. It happens. It's not rare. It doesn't mean that arrays/point buy don't create an environment rich in cookie cutter stats for characters.

 

[Maxperson]

So ability scores don't matter except they really do matter and point buy/arrays make characters cookie cutter because of that?

The stats don't matter with regard to play balance. They matter for preference in that they better model a realistic character. Arrays/point buy tend to make the vast majority of fighters stupid and/or uncharismatic. That's absurd, but it's what the array/point buy environment creates.