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

[FormerlyHemlock]

Rolling gives for more variability and fun, and gives you the feel that you are role-playing a unique character, sometimes you get a CON of 5, but what can you do, that's life. Or maybe you were born an idiot with an INT of 4. It happens. And it's fun. Standard Array makes everything homogenized and you end up wanting to Min-Max your character instead because from the get go you are allocating limited resources. This is not how D&D should be played.

And much of the time, people who play with standard array or especially point buy seem to rationalize themselves out of playing their scores anyway. You see lots of people claiming that Int 8 isn't really stupid, it's just "not book-smart." That way they can spend all of their points on Str, Wis, and Con (or whatever).

 

[cbwjm]

I don't think 8 intelligence is stupid. I equate it with an 80 IQ which is below average but still more than functional. I just looked it up. Apparently a lot of violent offenders fall in this range which is perfect for the melee PCs.

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[Harzel]

Personally, I've come to hate rolling for stats due to two issues that always seem to occur: a) disparity between characters, and b) an incredible amount of recurring "luck" :ahem: on the part of some people's stats. However, I do like the way that randomly generated stats can prompt creativity and stretching people's ideas for a character.

So, the next time I run D&D I plan on using a method for stat generation that I first heard here (I wish I could remember who to give credit to). The theory goes like this. Lets start with straight 3d6, in order. You've got 18 slots for dice (3x6). Now if probability worked the way people think/wish it does, then everybody rolling 3d6 should roll 3 1's, 3 2's, 3 3's, etc. Everyone would have 63 points distributed randomly amongst their stats. Dice won't do that for you, but cards can. Take all the playing cards from Ace to 6 from three suits of a deck of cards, and shuffle and deal them out in groups of three and there you go.

Now, 4d6 drop the lowest has an average value of about 12.24. Multiply by 6 stats and you get about 73.44 points....so if we can squeeze out around ten more points, we should get the same kind of results. So, take that set of cards and replace the 1's with the 3, 4, and 5* of the remaining suit and that gets you pretty close. Again, shuffle and deal them out in groups of three. If you want to be generous, let the player swap one pair of cards after dealing. I've tried it a bunch of times, and with the swap you can almost always get at least one really good score.


* 3, 4, 5 gives you 9 additional points
4, 5, 6 gives you 12
3, 4, 6 gives you 10 spot on, but a higher chance of seeing a "rolled" 18
If you have more than one deck of cards, you can replace them with all 4's or 5's, but you can lose some variety in the scores that way.

Very interesting. Also, if you wanted some variability/randomness in the total, you could add a few cards to the deck, but just deal the first 18. For instance, if you added a 3 and a 4, the average total would still be 63, but the total could vary between 58 and 68. However, although I haven't done the math, I am guessing that they would still be clustered very tightly around the mean (63).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I don't think 8 intelligence is stupid. I equate it with an 80 IQ which is below average but still more than functional. I just looked it up. Apparently a lot of violent offenders fall in this range which is perfect for the melee PCs.

IQ 80 is almost two standard deviations below the average high school graduate. It's dim by the standards of the people who are considered dim by the people you probably consider dim. It's "functional", yes, but if there aren't marked behavioral differences between your Int 8 PC and your Int 13 PC--if the Int 8 PC doesn't say and do things that are obviously wrong to you as a player--you're probably not really playing him as Int 8/IQ 80.

 

[cbwjm]

IQ 80 is almost two standard deviations below the average high school graduate. It's dim by the standards of the people who are considered dim by the people you probably consider dim. It's "functional", yes, but if there aren't marked behavioral differences between your Int 8 PC and your Int 13 PC--if the Int 8 PC doesn't say and do things that are obviously wrong to you as a player--you're probably not really playing him as Int 8/IQ 80.

Yeah but how much do you have to play that up. I often feel that some people take take the role playing side of things far too seriously and expect someone with a character with 8 intelligence to be playing a complete dunce and get offended if they don't.

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[clearstream]

The character creation method I want to use in my next campaign:

(1) Choose a race.
(2) Choose a background.
(3) Roll ability scores in order (4d6 drop the lowest).
(4) Choose a class.

The idea is that it emulates life. First you're born (race) into certain circumstances (background), then your natural abilities blossom (ability scores) and you take up an adventuring path (class).

No more min-maxing (or at least, a lot less of it). Sure, you can choose the class that works "best" with your highest ability score, but it might not be ideal for your race and background. Alas, such is life.

Interesting. I think of it more in terms of which are random and which are fiat? Random is done first because you can't predict where it will land you. Fiat comes after random because it's a free choice.

1. Roll ability scores and assign (4d6 drop lowest, may reroll from scratch if net +s are < 2)
2. Choose a class
3. Choose a race
4. Choose a background

I feel like it does players a mild disservice to roll scores after choosing race, because of the interaction between the two in yielding final abilities. For years I've gone with roll and assign, but I'm leaning these days back toward roll in order. The reroll from scratch is about parity between players: I don't want anyone too overshadowed.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

The important aspect is the balance between the characters in the party.

As long as everyone gets to choose their stats, you are to some extent correct.

But that's not the issue in this discussion. The problem arises when one character starts with a 20, while another starts with a 14. That's three more feats, which makes a huge difference.

That is a problem.

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[clearstream]

The important aspect is the balance between the characters in the party.

Well put.

But that's not the issue in this discussion. The problem arises when one character starts with a 20, while another starts with a 14. That's three more feats, which makes a huge difference.

I agree with your general argument, while seeing a couple of ways to potentially enhance it. First of all I believe that where the points go, matters. There's a big difference between increasing one score by 6 (from 14 to 16) gaining +3 in bonuses, and increasing six scores by 1, potentially gaining nothing in bonuses. I'd like to suggest a principle that +1 bonus = 1 feat. Could I then suggest further that a 3 feat difference is not egregious? In fact, it's a given. The PHB gives two examples of points buy (15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8) or (13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12). Our choice of race increases those scores by 3 to 6. With exactly those arrays I can achieve about a 5 feat spread after applying my race. Therefore, isn't our tolerance more like 5 feats?

My current party has Dragonborn +8, Variant Human +7 (inc. feat), Half-elf +9, Halfling +7, Dwarf +14. That dwarf has 7 feats more than lowest, and 5 feats more than nearest! If our tolerance is 5 feats, then we need to pull him back by 2 feats, right? But if a 0 feat spread is our goal, then we'll need different mechanics. So... does a 5 feat spread - as permitted by points buy - seem fair?

 

[MoonSong]

And much of the time, people who play with standard array or especially point buy seem to rationalize themselves out of playing their scores anyway. You see lots of people claiming that Int 8 isn't really stupid, it's just "not book-smart." That way they can spend all of their points on Str, Wis, and Con (or whatever).

Again Int 8 ain't that low. Otherwise every score from 1 to 7 loses all meaning. Compare it with let's say strength -the one other score that we can "measure" in real life- I can comfortable carry from 60 to 80 pounds and most people are definitively stronger than me. That places me anywhere between the 6-7 strength, yet I'm not exactly crippled by it. A person with strength 8-9 would be stronger than me and not actually that hindered by it. Int 8 is the rough equivalent of a mild learning disability, not full-on idiot levels.

 

[Oofta]

"Why not?" => "because it costs too much." Point buy introduces more problems than it solves in my opinion. It exacerbates bothersome anticorrelations between attributes (smart guys are rarely strong, and strong guys are rarely smart, instead of them being independent of each other as they should be) and confines play to a very narrow section of attribute space. The vast majority of interesting characters cannot be created under point buy. You can NEVER have an Int 18 Raistlin, for example; and you can never have an Int 7 Giuseppe Zengara.

It's like playing a campaign where all PCs are required to be exactly 5'6" and have exactly one sibling, always of the opposite sex and either two years older or two years younger than the PC.

With point buy, you lose too much fun and variety for too little gain. That's why not.

YMMV, etc.

Why is that any different from what most people do - roll the numbers and assign where you want?

Want randomized stat placement? Roll for which array you use and then roll for placement. Randomized while still starting all characters on equal footing.

Or ... I don't know ... just let people build and play the character they had envisioned.