Helpful NPC Thom
Adventurer
3d6 down the line, no rerolls, human fighter only, final destination.
You get ONE try for each stat at each levelup (which I personally find excessive) If it's your class' main stat, you can try twice.Interesting idea. How often is such a roll given? (not familiar with The Black Hack at all)
I like how The Black Hack does it: you roll 1d20 and if the result is ABOVE your current stat, it goes up by 1 point. That way it gets harder the higher your stat already is.
Which means someone starting with a standard-ish run of stats - say, 15-14-13-12-10-8 - has a pretty good chance of seeing two of those go up at level 2 and (maybe not the same) two go up at level 3; after which the odds very much favour one stat going up each level for quite a while.You get ONE try for each stat at each levelup (which I personally find excessive) If it's your class' main stat, you can try twice.
What do they begin at after character creation/before the first roll? Do they roll at level 1 or not till 2?You get ONE try for each stat at each levelup (which I personally find excessive) If it's your class' main stat, you can try twice.
Which means someone starting with a standard-ish run of stats - say, 15-14-13-12-10-8 - has a pretty good chance of seeing two of those go up at level 2 and (maybe not the same) two go up at level 3; after which the odds very much favour one stat going up each level for quite a while.
I agree, that's excessive - unless you're playing a level-capped variant similar to the E6 version of 3e, in which case I could live with it.
In "TBH" at character creation, you roll 3d6 in order. If you roll 14+ for one stat, the next stat will automatically be a 7. Once you have 6 stats, you can swap 2 stats to your liking.What do they begin at after character creation/before the first roll? Do they roll at level 1 or not till 2?
True.True, but if you could only choose one per level, you'd go with the fifteen. And then you'd have a 75% chance of nothing happening, meaning it could be multiple levels until you saw any growth. So, they have to have it be for every stat just on that, and if you assume an average game of ten levels, you probably need every level to get that fifteen to go up two or three times.
True.
I suppose the bigger question* is, on average how many total stat points, if any, should a character expect to gain** over 5 levels, or 10, or 20? Then once that one's answered the next is should those gains be at predictable points (e.g. every x levels), or random, or a combination of both? After that we can ask should the gains be in stats of the player's choice, or forced by class (i.e. gains must be in your prime stat), or randomized, or some combination?
Personally, I'm not sold on the need for much stat gain at all in 5e, largely because as far as I can tell there's no means of permanently losing stat points in this edition thus any cancel-out-the-losses rationale evaporates. I could see over 20 levels a gain of maybe 2-5 points in your prime stat plus the same range again in total across randomized other stats, with the gains in all cases coming unpredictably. One way of doing this might be to take that roll-over-the-stat method propsed upthread and modify it such that if you miss at a level your roll at next level is at +5, cumulative each level until you hit; but once you hit you don't get to roll for that stat on the level following such that a stat cannot advance on two level-ups in a row. (so if the stat is 15 and you roll 13 (miss) then next level you roll 6 [+5] (miss) then next level you roll 12 [+10] (hit, stat advances) then next level there's no roll, after which you start the process again by rolling straight-up against 16)
* - and one can argue this question can be applied in some form to any edition, not just 5e; and the answer would probably be different for each.
** - via pure game mechanics, ignoring wish effects or other in-game means of permanently boosting a stat.