D&D 5E Point Buy vs Rolling for Stats

[Tony Vargas]

You mean you don't always round down in D&D?

You generally do, exceptions, like getting your one-and-only HD back after a single long rest at 1st level, do exist.

AKA, yes it looks like I was accidentally using integer math.
The real numbers:
15.6627465
14.1746176
12.9559838
11.76172
10.4118873
8.5048237

16,14,12,13,11,10,9? Still not quite the standard array, still close. There's more rounding up than down, though, so 15 and 8 on the ends wouldn't be terribly unreasonable. Hmmm...

 

[Satyrn]

You generally do, exceptions, like getting your one-and-only HD back after a single long rest at 1st level, do exist.

Do you like nitpicking so much you can't just laugh at his joke?

 

[Oofta]

16,14,12,13,11,10,9? Still not quite the standard array, still close. There's more rounding up than down, though, so 15 and 8 on the ends wouldn't be terribly unreasonable. Hmmm...

I do wonder why they chose to only go up to 15 instead of 16. It's an easy enough tweak to do. Maybe just to discourage everyone from thinking they "have to have" an 18 at 1st level?

A mystery for the ages.

 

[Satyrn]

I do wonder why they chose to only go up to 15 instead of 16. It's an easy enough tweak to do. Maybe just to discourage everyone from thinking they "have to have" an 18 at 1st level?

If that was the reasoning, I'd totally agree with it.

I have actually found myself quite satisfied with a 16 ever since we started using the array, when, back when rolling I looked to get a 20.

 

[Maxperson]

Where did you get those numbers?

http://anydice.com/articles/4d6-drop-lowest/

 

[Maxperson]

Well, second or third after 3d6-in-order and 4d6-in-order, if I may split that particular hair.
The 5e default is random-and-arrange, but it also allows the player who doesn't want to roll to just use the standard array -
and I'll spin that a little now - by default.

Well, it's first in 5e as there is no other way to roll by default. You'd have to make up the method as a house rule. I'll grant you that the array is the default to use if you don't want to use rolling, which is the first choice that the game makes for stat generation. If the game were balanced around arrays, it would be first and you could roll if you didn't want to use the array.

Sure, like feats & multi-classing and PCs getting ahold of magic items...

Yep. Balance took a back seat in 5e.

Straight 12s have the same problem, they're very unlikely to actually happen to every PC in a party of 5

They have to have something as a baseline to use, and the average roll seems like a reasonable place to start.

They were no part of the classic game. Presumably, they're there for a bit of optional 3.x feel.

I think it's more that they were wildly popular.

The one nearly-explicit attempt at balance is the 6-8 encounter day. Not that there aren't plenty of folks who don't accept that, either.

Yeah, that they didn't balance at all around magic items, feats, etc. shows that balance means very little in this edition. Virtually every game is going to have feats, and even more will have magic items.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If the game were balanced around arrays, it would be first and you could roll if you didn't want to use the array.

If balance were a high priority, if evoking classic feel were the higher priority, rolling like you did back in the day would be front and center. And it is.

They have to have something as a baseline to use, and the average roll seems like a reasonable place to start.

That's the interesting thing: the ranked-average /is/ really close to the array (heck, it might be where they got the array, it's that close, to w/in rounding differences).

This is just a personal impression from running too many 1st-level intro games, but random generation can give you one or two particularly good PCs in a party, who can then help 'carry' the party. Array, you're all 'just OK,' and no one's carrying anyone....

I think it's more that they were wildly popular.

I don't put a lot of credence in appeals to popularity, not when D&D has always been so very un-popular, 'fringe' even.

Yeah, that they didn't balance at all around magic items, feats, etc. shows that balance means very little in this edition. Virtually every game is going to have feats, and even more will have magic items.

So I'm not too worried about which chargen method they 'balanced around.'

 

[Maxperson]

If balance were a high priority, if evoking classic feel were the higher priority, rolling like you did back in the day would be front and center. And it is.That's the interesting thing: the ranked-average /is/ really close to the array (heck, it might be where they got the array, it's that close, to w/in rounding differences).

This is just a personal impression from running too many 1st-level intro games, but random generation can give you one or two particularly good PCs in a party, who can then help 'carry' the party. Array, you're all 'just OK,' and no one's carrying anyone....

It also doesn't really matter. A 12-13 is +1, and a 14-15 is +2. When you're playing in a system where racial abilities, character abilities, feats and magic items all have more weight than stats, that +1 difference doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot.

I don't put a lot of credence in appeals to popularity, not when D&D has always been so very un-popular, 'fringe' even.

Context man! Clearly I'm talking about within the fringe, and not the entire country. I didn't put a .0001 into it. Besides, it's not an appeal to popularity. I didn't make the claim that feats were good, because they were popular. I said that were included because they were popular, which is different.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I didn't make the claim that feats were good, because they were popular. I said that were included because they were popular, which is different.

OK, point taken. OTOH, they were made optional because they were unpopular? 5e was trying to deliver on what each past edition had. That included 3.5 feats & MCing, but those didn't mesh well with the classic game. So, optional. It wasn't a popularity contest, though, because they were trying to include fans of all past editions, not just fans of the most popular edition (1e, AFAIK).

 

[Lanefan]

You mean you don't always round down in D&D?

Only when it hurts the players.

AKA, yes it looks like I was accidentally using integer math.
The real numbers:
15.6627465
14.1746176
12.9559838
11.76172
10.4118873
8.5048237

And suddenly this makes a lot more sense. In fact, rounding these normally gives 16-14-13-12-10-9 for a total of 74 - very slightly over what 6 x 12.24 would give (73.4-ish if memory serves) thus gaining about half a point - though the '9' is very close to rounding down instead to an 8: pretty much flip a coin on that one.

Lanefan