D&D 5E Attribute Score Method

[el-remmen]

Has anyone ever tried a dice pool method? Like you get X d6 total. The minimum you can use for any stat is 3 but you can use up to X-15 dice on any one stat (which would assume using 3d6 straight for the other five of the six) taking the 3 highest rolls for your stat regardless of how many dice you use.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Would Roll #d6 with adjustments account for 4d6 drop 1?

Yes.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Has anyone ever tried a dice pool method? Like you get X d6 total. The minimum you can use for any stat is 3 but you can use up to X-15 dice on any one stat (which would assume using 3d6 straight all five of the six) taking the 3 highest rolls for your stat regardless of how many dice you use.

I believe I have seen something like that offered up as an alternative method somewhere at sometime in some version of D&D. Hope I narrowed it down!

 

[cbwjm]

Yes.

Cool, that's the one I voted for.

We use 4d6 drop 1 and I also require that the players must have at least two 15s before racial adjustments.

 

[Dragonblade]

14 in all stats, you can trade up or down, 1 for 1. Max 18 before racial or other adjustments. Yes, this means you can have 18,18,18,10,10,10. Thats what most of my players do, but not always.

I prefer my players to be more powerful as I don't care about "balanced" encounters. I run my games with a bit of an old school sensibility and if you fight everything thinking you are too tough, you will die. That being said, I prefer PC's be larger than life, "Big Damn Heroes" if you will. They are the best of the best, and their stats should reflect that.

 

[cbwjm]

Has anyone ever tried a dice pool method? Like you get X d6 total. The minimum you can use for any stat is 3 but you can use up to X-15 dice on any one stat (which would assume using 3d6 straight all five of the six) taking the 3 highest rolls for your stat regardless of how many dice you use.

I have considered using a pool of dice (perhaps 20), rolling them all and then players can assign the rolled numbers to their stats as they wish. Minimum 2 dice to be assigned to each stat and no stat can be below 3 or above 18 at the end.

 

[Shiroiken]

Other, but includes point buy and rolling. You have the option of rolling or using point buy. If you roll, you have the option to default to the standard array. The standard array isn't very good, so defaulting to it is worse than point buy, but better than a crap roll.

I'm toying with an idea for my next campaign (obviously need player buy-in). Instead of the existing options, I'd create 4-6 different arrays using a system similar to point buy (allowing above 15 and below 8) instead of the standard array. Part of me likes the idea of rolling for the array, but if so I'd think roll 2 dice for options. This would allow a bit of customization, keeping everyone equal, while not seeing the CharOp I usually see from point buy.

 

[Oofta]

Point buy. I've seen too many vastly different results and I don't see the point to randomizing who your character is.

 

[Marc_C]

If you are going to use all kinds of dice shenanigans to skew the results, just use Point Buy. Otherwise roll 3d6 and let the players place the score in the attribute they need to play the character they want.

 

[delericho]

I believe I have seen something like that offered up as an alternative method somewhere at sometime in some version of D&D. Hope I narrowed it down!

That was one of the alternatives in the 1st Ed "Unearthed Arcana". Only you didn't get to choose the sizes of the individual pools - you picked a class first and it mandated the sizes of each of the 7 pools.