D&D 5E Remember the "3d6 For Stats In Order" Thread? I'm doing it!

[Ratskinner]

EDIT: Its the Method @clearstream mentioned

At least for WotC-D&D, the best method for "fair" random stat generation is a method that I saw on this board. (Although I don't remember who thought of it, to give them credit.)

Make a deck of 18 cards from the following:
3-2's
4-3's
4-4's
4-5's
3-6's

Shuffle and then:

Easy: Deal them out into six piles of three cards each. Those are your stats, arrange to suit.

Rough: Same, except the stacks come in order.

Option to make it easier on folks: you may swap one pair of cards between two stacks. (Makes it very likely to get a 16+)

If you want to be super harsh, and replicate 3d6, use a deck of 18 that has three of each number from 1-6.

 

[DND_Reborn]

This is precisely the opposite of my experience. From what I can tell, the AD&D exceptional strength bonus is a tremendous incentive for fighter-players to "cheat"* on stat rolls. I don't know that I've ever seen a single-class AD&D fighter without exceptional strength...which flies in the face of all this "tough guy" OSR rhetoric that I hear so much...and statistics.

*"cheat" here meaning everything from flat-out: "No, I rolled it straight up, honest!" To lobbying for more bizarre rolling methods to suicide by fighters without exceptional strength.

I suppose we simply had different experiences then. 18/xx STR in our 1E games was not rare, but uncommon. Of course for the XP bonus, 16 was often there, and many 17's. More commonly, Fighter's grasped up the Gauntlets of Ogre Power ASAP! The breakdown was probably about this:

15 or lower: 15%
16 or 17: 60%
18/xx: 25%

 

[DND_Reborn]

EDIT: Its the Method @clearstream mentioned

At least for WotC-D&D, the best method for "fair" random stat generation is a method that I saw on this board. (Although I don't remember who thought of it, to give them credit.)

Make a deck of 18 cards from the following:
3-2's
4-3's
4-4's
4-5's
3-6's

Shuffle and then:

Easy: Deal them out into six piles of three cards each. Those are your stats, arrange to suit.

Rough: Same, except the stacks come in order.

Option to make it easier on folks: you may swap one pair of cards between two stacks. (Makes it very likely to get a 16+)

If you want to be super harsh, and replicate 3d6, use a deck of 18 that has three of each number from 1-6.

That was one of the arrays for cards I suggested...

When I was playing around with the Card method, I used more 3's and 4's than 2's and 5's (2:4, 3:5, 4:5, 5:4). But, the nice thing about it is you can tweak the deck (as mentioned). One variant I liked which gave slightly better scores (but nothing crazy) was 2:3, 3:5, 4:5, 5:5 (avg 11) or 2:3, 3:4, 4:4, 5:4, 6:3 (avg 12) if you want an 18 to be possible.

 

[Ratskinner]

That was one of the arrays for cards I suggested...

Don't suppose you know where/who it came from originally. I first saw it several years ago.

 

[Ratskinner]

More commonly, Fighter's grasped up the Gauntlets of Ogre Power ASAP!

Yeah, but that runs counter to your earlier claim:

The reason 3d6 worked okay in earlier editions, such as AD&D, was because ability scores weren't tied into things as invasive as they are since 3E and 5E in particular.<snip>

If Ability Scores weren't as important as they are now, then fighters wouldn't be as desperate for gauntlets or belts. (My experience matches yours, there.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

This is precisely the opposite of my experience. . I don't know that I've ever seen a single-class AD&D fighter without exceptional strength...

It is, in essence, a a significant class feature gated behind the highest stat requirement in the game.
You may have also noticed a lot of 16 Cons among non-fighters as only fighters got the hp bonus for 17 or 18.

But, it's also true that if you didn't have huge STR as a fighter you were probably first in line for the Gauntlet or Girdle that just /replaced/ your STR score. The more Monty Haul your DM, the less the point of investing in STR.

If Ability Scores weren't as important as they are now, then fighters wouldn't be as desperate for gauntlets or belts. (My experience matches yours, there.)

Rolled ability scores weren't as important, because items could replace or boost them.

STR, as above, could be augmented by multiple items, an 18 DEX bestowed by one of two, books and wishes and random magical scenery could mess with your stats.



::sigh:: fun times

 

[clearstream]

Well, I am glad to help and find it interesting. Point-buy is perfect for MAD classes as you can build a character with three good abilities and no penalties. You can draw a three score decent MAD character with cards, but because it is balanced out, you will have two penalties.

As I dig into this, I feel more sure race needs to be taken into account. Envision -

Cards-3 13, 13, 13, 11, 7, 6
Points-3 14, 14, 14, 10, 10, 10
Cards-2 15, 14, 10, 9, 9, 6

We choose monk for cards-3 and points-3, and fighter for cards-2, thus -

Cards-3 + Human 12, 14, 14, 7, 14, 8
Points + Wood elf 10, 16, 14, 10, 15, 10
Cards-2 + Mountain dwarf 17, 10, 16, 9, 9, 6 assuming fighter

Cards-2 has 1 better attack and damage, 1 more hit point per die, 4 better ac against cards-3.
Cards-2 has 1 more hit point per die, and 3 better ac against points-3.
Points-3 has 1 better ac, attack and damage over cards-3, and that is intentional: cards should be worse than points-buy, for my harder-difficulty campaign.

Cards-3 + Human + ASI 12, 16, 14, 7, 14, 8
Points + Wood elf + ASI 10, 18, 14, 10, 15, 10
Cards-2 + Mountain dwarf + ASI 17, 10, 16, 9, 9, 6

Adding an ASI closes the ac gaps by 1 (plate doesn't improve, the bonus from Dexterity does), otherwise the picture remains much the same.

I'm confident that the difference between cards and points-buy for monk equates to the intended harder-difficulty for my campaign. In choosing my card mix I set the baseline ability scores deliberately lower than points-buy.

I believe about 3 points of ac is intended class discrepancy (fighters are intended to have higher ac than monks). Cards-3's net modifiers are 3 better than cards-2, meaning they will be more versatile with better saving throws. On the other hand, they have taken a knock of 1 worse across salient combat abilities (their initiative is significantly better, but everything else is worse).

On balance, I'm very comfortable with where that lands. I expected MAD classes to be 1 worse and they are: this is well inside the bounds of playing style to cope with and any overshadowing will be down to that (and to other finesses the players might think of). I'm also comfortable that ideal MAD characters should be scarce: that will reflect the positioning of those classes in the world narrative.

 

[clearstream]

Don't suppose you know where/who it came from originally. I first saw it several years ago.

I didn't originate it. I first heard of it from dnd4vr and others in a previous thread.

It seems likely it has been invented and reinvented more than once over the decades since RPG entered gaming culture, but I don't think anyone was claiming it

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yeah, but that runs counter to your earlier claim:

If Ability Scores weren't as important as they are now, then fighters wouldn't be as desperate for gauntlets or belts. (My experience matches yours, there.)

See Tony's response.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I didn't originate it. I first heard of it from dnd4vr and others in a previous thread.

It seems likely it has been invented and reinvented more than once over the decades since RPG entered gaming culture, but I don't think anyone was claiming it

Yeah, using cards to replace dice has been around for decades. You just take Ace through Six for each suite, separate into piles, shuffle, and draw one from each pile.