D&D 5E Point buy vs roll

[Maxperson]

The big difference between 5e and 1e-2e is that the bonuses (and penalties) kick in way sooner and then increase faster, which makes stats in the 6-9 and 12-15 ranges somewhat more significant. There's not too much difference once you're in the 3-5 or 16-18 ranges, and 10-11 is flat in every edition.

They kick in sooner, but don't make that much difference. They're almost feel good bonuses.

 

[Li Shenron]

But it's still boring.

Between having to take into account your racial modifiers and choosing how to assign your scores to abilities, it's not much less dynamic than point-buy.

 

[Blue]

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. My campaigns are not dependent on having all the players who started staying through to the end and some rotation is part of the game. If this is something that indicates early to players that they won't be getting the kind of game they are looking for in my campaign, that's another benefit.

In some games, yes. But with 5th edition in particular, I don't think it's really possible to get truly awful stats.
There is a 0.5% chance to get a character with one or more scores of 3. That's one in 200 characters.
There is a 7% chance to get a character with one or more scores of 5 or lower. That's one in 14 characters.
At 4th level, you can increase that 5 to a 7, for a -2 modifier. And -2 is not terrible. Especially when you can decide your worst stat goes into an ability your chosen class does not rely on much.
And if by that point you still really hate your character, you can always start a different one. Nobody is being forced to stick with the same character just to play in the campaign.

Your analysis is looking at the wrong thing. 5e cares about specialization. It wants 1 highest, and then 1-2 pretty high scores.

But, it also is a team game. You have a +2 or even +3 modifier difference in that prime ability score between the one that rolled best and the one that rolled worst, that's a really big deal. Heck, that takes a rare magic item just to make up that difference in attacks or DCs. Assuming a DM is putting out a challenge for the whole party, the one behind will really feel like they need the math adjustment of the ASI, while the one ahead can either maintain the gap with an ASI of their own, or enhance their character in other ways via feats.

So if you want to do an analysis, look at the highest score of each, and then compare to a party of 5 or 6. I think you'll find that a good number of campaigns, definitely more than a quarter of them, would have that sort of issue.

 

[Parmandur]

Between having to take into account your racial modifiers and choosing how to assign your scores to abilities, it's not much less dynamic than point-buy.

Yeah, but that's damning with faint praise.

 

[Parmandur]

I find the exact opposite to be true in practice. When you have a party with ability scores aqll over the place and the "haves" are enhancing their characters with feats while the "have-nots" are taking ASIs just for the math bonus trying to catch up to deal with the challenges the DM sets, well the power difference just broadens in Tier 1 & 2 play that most people play.

Never seen it play out that way.

 

[gss000]

As a DM, I strongly encourage/require players to use point buy or standard array for 5e. I've seen too much fun sucked out of the game for too many players over the years not because of "low" rolls but because of significant disparities among the PCs.

This best sums up my experience with rolling, which I did for the first 13 years of gaming until 3rd ed came out. I played one long term game where my character was okay in terms of stats, but another player was fantastically lucky. It did result in that one character having a lot more of the cinematic moments, which was frustrating for other members of the party from time to time.

 

[Oofta]

Never had a PC last a full year, to be honest. WotC's assumption of 9-12 mo th campaigns, if we are lucky, is spot on.

I'd still want to use point buy no matter what, but I wouldn't care much about rolling vs point buy if I knew I'd be replacing that PC in less than a year.

 

[Blue]

Never played a pick up game: always with close friends and family. And there would be issues much more significant than character generation if someone is willing to chest at the start.

I play pretty much just with close friends. Doesn't mean cheating doesn't happen. One felt it was cooporative game, so he's not cheating the other players and was "keeping the DM in line". Another liked feats so always made sure his attack/DC stat was a 20 after racial so he could just take them. Another was really afraid of her character dying and would always have a great CON (and therefore her prime ability above it) and never seemed to roll low on HPs. Another like "good stories" and would regularly cheat on d20 rolls to "make that happen".

 

[Blue]

Rolling all the way. The way I see it, a big part of the game (most types of games really) is playing the hand you're dealt, and that occasionally means low to average scores.

So one minute of rolling should affect the next several years of the campaign?

I find that ludicrous.

There are plenty of reasonable arguments for rolled - I prefer it in the older editions. But that's not one of them.

 

[Lyxen]

This best sums up my experience with rolling, which I did for the first 13 years of gaming until 3rd ed came out. I played one long term game where my character was okay in terms of stats, but another player was fantastically lucky. It did result in that one character having a lot more of the cinematic moments, which was frustrating for other members of the party from time to time.

It's true that it's one of the drawbacks of really unbalanced stats if the DM does not make sure to compensate (and once more this is not an inherent flaw of any system, there are so many sources of unbalance between characters - if only due to the players themselves - that there WILL be unbalance and it's the DM's job to deal with it, hopefully with the players' help as well if they are mature about that).