D&D 5E 4d6 Drop the Highest?

[Blue]

Some interesting ideas here, but be prepared for some serious resistance. For myself, I much prefer to go the other way: 3D6+6, drop the lowest. So the least you can get is an 8.

Over half the rolls of that are 15 or higher. Only abut 1 in 20 doesn't have a positive modifier. 35% of them are 16 or higher.

That misses the original posters points about wanting flaws but also about liking variation from rolls in the first place if they are uniformly high. As well as not playing nice with 5e's bounded accuracy.

It would fit a high powered / big dang heroes type of game, but in that case maybe blowing out the ability score cap would be good so there's still some room for growth.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I dig the idea of that final flawed roll – one of the things I love about the standard array method is that it makes you make a hard choice as to what to do with that 8.

4d6 drop the lowest was my go-to stat generation method for ages. The only reason I dropped it is because I realized that, unless you’re watching each roll, there’s always someone that cheats. Now, if it’s not too blatant, I probably wouldn’t even notice or care. But there’s always that gamer, that while everyone else is rocking 7s through 14s, shows up with an 18 in their prime stat and nothing lower than a 12. Who then claims “yeah, I just roll high.”

 

[5ekyu]

I agree with this. However, there is one small problem with this method: D&D is a team game. It may be fun for one player to voluntarily take a 6 even though he rolled an 11. But it might not be so fun for the rest of the party who have to carry his weight. I think that’s part of the appeal of rolled stats for some - you can experience the “joy of the flaw” without being That Guy who chooses to play a flawed character even though there are 3 other players relying on you. If anyone gets annoyed at you for binging a crappy character to the table, you get to blame the dice. Likewise, if you like having super high stats, there’s a chance that you’ll get that god roll with multiple 16+ stats, and you can blame the dice instead of risking being called a munchkin.

Here’s what I’d recommend: The stat generation method is ostensibly 4d6 drop lowest. Everyone rolls their own stats, away from the table, at home if they like. At the table, there are no questions asked, regardless of what stats a player has. The players who enjoy the excitement of random stats and want to play what they rolled fairly get to do so. The players who really need high stats to have a fun time can do so with no judgment. The folks who love the “joy of the flaw” can make their characters as flawed as they like without others feeling like they’re willingly hamstringing the party. Everyone wins

In cases where such "shade" is needed, sure. But in my ecperience just being open about what you want and playing with others who share or accept that is better in the ling run.

I mean even if they dont vlame you specifically the feeling about "carrying your weight" is still there whether they think it was intentional or blame it on the dice.

All hiding the source does is raise doubts for those looking to blame if blame is a problem.

Meanwhile the "nod nod wink wink" approach to honestly generating chars would also spread doubt to the lucky guy.

Honestly if i committed to play in a game ran that way, i would look to you (GM) and say "you give me stats and let me assign them (or not if order was random" so there was no question where the stats came from.

Then again, thats likely not a bad approach for dealing with ANY GM who wants to get very influential in character attribute process. Just cut away the beard and just say "Hey, you want to pick the numbers... So fine you do it, give me the results and wake me when my choices and preferences mean something."





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[Charlaquin]

In cases where such "shade" is needed, sure. But in my ecperience just being open about what you want and playing with others who share or accept that is better in the ling run.

I mean even if they dont vlame you specifically the feeling about "carrying your weight" is still there whether they think it was intentional or blame it on the dice.

All hiding the source does is raise doubts for those looking to blame if blame is a problem.

Meanwhile the "nod nod wink wink" approach to honestly generating chars would also spread doubt to the lucky guy.

Honestly if i committed to play in a game ran that way, i would look to you (GM) and say "you give me stats and let me assign them (or not if order was random" so there was no question where the stats came from.

Then again, thats likely not a bad approach for dealing with ANY GM who wants to get very influential in character attribute process. Just cut away the beard and just say "Hey, you want to pick the numbers... So fine you do it, give me the results and wake me when my choices and preferences mean something."

Excellent points. Might be better to just leave the pretense of randomly rolling the stats and instead tell everyone to use whatever stat generation method they want. “You generate them for me” would be a legitimate choice, as would simply assigning whatever values you want, as would rolling or point buying.