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

[FrogReaver]

In a contest of wisdom, a Pc with a 19 only wins against a Pc with 14 about 40% of the time. Sure he may be a very wise individual, but the games math doesn't make him remarkably more incredible than someone who is only above average.

So the question becomes do you play to the reality of the games math or some
Made up fiction based on what you believe attributes to represent. Being that a 19 wisdom player may be very wise but still fails at rather mundane DC 10 tasks a full 25% of the time means that even one of the wisest beings on the planet in no way has otherworldly levels of insight and perception. Sure they are more aware than the average person, and by quite a bit, but they are no dhali lama. The games reality simply does not support such a claim.

Instead, in my mind, to represent the level of awareness of one like the dhali lama, you require more than just a high attribute. Such an intuitive character would be one who has trained their awareness so rigorously that they have taken the feats that grant expertise in the chosen skills.

I think you have that backwards. 19 wisdom should win more than 50% of the time on a contested check. Of course most NPC's won't have a wisdom stat to contest a check against and so the DM likely will set a DC.

 

[Ashkelon]

The issue for me is that my characters are generally more interesting when I roll and it's typically because of the access to higher than normal off stats without drastically sacrificing my ability to fight. Though sometimes they are interesting for a different reason. Sometimes they are exceptionally low off stats that make him interesting!

I'm all for party parity when it comes to combat. But I'm also for interesting characters and for me and I suspect for most people we create more interesting characters when we roll.

If you want more interesting rolled characters that have greater parity with a typical point built party use this method.

Roll 3d6 in order. This represents your PCs inhereted capabilities.

Then you get 17 points to spend to increase your attributes as you choose using the standard point buy method. This represents your training and education.

The end result is a PC who might be a wizard with a 16 strength or a sorcerer with a 17 wisdom. It gives a more organic feel to character creation without falling into the typical pitfalls of 4d6 drop 1 (which is some PCs being exceptional while others are only average).

 

[Zardnaar]

One thing we also used in 3.5 with rolled stats is all the PCs roll characters, they chose to dump one, DM dumps another and of the remaining ones they can choose what stat array to use. Or the DM rolls 4 PCs and the players can chose what ones they want to use.

That takes care of the drastic difference in rolled stats. If I have a small party I am a lot more generous in terms of allowing rerolls etc. 4+ players you keep what you roll +unless you roll really bad.

Out of 5 PCs we had 1 get a natural 18, another one rolled quit well (2 scores over 16) and the other 3 got something fairly close to 31 point buy (2 15s, all scores higher than 10 or 12). The player who got the 18 took a cleric so its kind of a reward for taking one for the team. That player was also new as well and is rocking a nature cleric with shilleagh.

With racial mods + resilient I think the Bladedancer might be rocking 3 18s at level 4. I think the fighter rolled the lowest which was a bit higher than the default array. He doesn't mind as he played AD&D and in a previous 5E game he got absurd stats and played a Dwarf UA favoured Soul and rocked.

 

[FrogReaver]

I prefer rolling, but with slightly reduced randomness and a more limited range of results. My method is:

Roll 2d6+4, or 3d6 and replace one die with a 4.

This gives results between 6-16. I encourage keeping the the order of the rolls, but don't absolutely require it.

I don't like Ability Score Increases because this encourages generic character's that all end up with the same stats, especially when combined with the Point Buy or Standard Array systems. I am somewhere between Old School D&D that had no way to increase abilities, and New School which allows far too many increases. I am still trying to find the right balance.

It could be cool to do away with leveling ASI's and give quest elixers for stat increases

 

[FrogReaver]

If you want more interesting rolled characters that have greater parity with a typical point built party use this method.

Roll 3d6 in order. This represents your PCs inhereted capabilities.

Then you get 17 points to spend to increase your attributes as you choose using the standard point buy method. This represents your training and education.

The end result is a PC who might be a wizard with a 16 strength or a sorcerer with a 17 wisdom. It gives a more organic feel to character creation without falling into the typical pitfalls of 4d6 drop 1 (which is some PCs being exceptional while others are only average).

How high can I boost an int roll of 3 with that method?

 

[Zardnaar]

I shold probably point out my players are kinda powergamers up to a point but if they roll an 18 they are more likely to take a non standard race for their class option or take one of the weaker options like a gish and make it work.

With point buy I saw a lot of variant humans and half elves being chosen the other races were more rare. In almost every case people were picking races to get a 16 prime. I'm not getting players rolling an 18 and matching up a +2 race to start the game with a 20. They do things like play a Dwarf Sorcerer or bump up secondary and tertiary stats for multiple 16's+ rather than have a 20/14/15 type best 3 stats.

 

[Wulffolk]

It could be cool to do away with leveling ASI's and give quest elixers for stat increases

I just hate that every Fighter or Barbarian ends up stronger than an Ogre and every Wizard is an Einstein.

 

[Wulffolk]

Oops

 

[FrogReaver]

I shold probably point out my players are kinda powergamers up to a point but if they roll an 18 they are more likely to take a non standard race for their class option or take one of the weaker options like a gish and make it work.

With point buy I saw a lot of variant humans and half elves being chosen the other races were more rare. In almost every case people were picking races to get a 16 prime. I'm not getting players rolling an 18 and matching up a +2 race to start the game with a 20. They do things like play a Dwarf Sorcerer or bump up secondary and tertiary stats for multiple 16's+ rather than have a 20/14/15 type best 3 stats.

Yep that describes me pretty well. I don't like to be weaker than I normally could be but I don't have to be the strongest either. Somewhere inbetween normal and strongest is generally fine with some nice flavor in the rest..

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Does anyone remember the method in the Rules Cyclopedia? It was something like:

1: Roll 3d6 in order.
2: You can raise your prerequisite by 1 point for every 2 points you reduce another stat.
3: You cannot reduce Charisma. You cannot reduce a stat below 9 (I think).

The RC was my first introduction to DND which might be why I still kind of like this method (or the idea of it at least since I don't use it for my 5e games). Stat bonuses were less important for basic DND and only went up to +3 on an 18 (9-12 gave a modifier of 0, 13-15 was +1, 16-17 was +2) but the ability to say, I want to play a wizard and being able to reduce that 15 strength you rolled down to a 9, if desired, so that you can boost your 10 intelligence to 13 helped mitigate the randomness of rolls.

I remember something like that from the Red Box. I don't think it had a special case for Charisma though.