D&D 5E How does your group determine ability scores?

[Guest 7034872]

On one hand I favor the position of those here who dislike huge variations in PC stats, but on the other hand I do still like having players roll for stats. Seems a bit off to hold both those preferences, right? Lemme explain it.

The described dilemma faced by Oofta's wife put a sour taste in my mouth; I don't think I would ever respond to her situation in that way as DM or want to play a PC under a DM who did. We're all supposed to be bonding with each other around the table and, if not being or becoming friends, at least being mutually friendly, aren't we? I take "Yes" as an axiomatic premise and will not entertain forms of play that do not. So that whole situation with her sucked. Accordingly, no "3d6 in order as rolled and if you don't like it, suck it up, babycakes!" Not in my games, thank you.

But now on the other side I don't really want a point-buy system, either. As DM, I'd always be happy to allow a player to use that option, but I don't want to enforce it on everyone. A lot of players enjoy the excitement of rolling for stats in the initial character build and I think the randomness it introduces does give each player an interesting range of possibilities and dilemmas to solve that we wouldn't find in point-buy. For instance, I have a player who rolled very high on his primary stat, but also very low on WIS. This has resulted in some wildly entertaining game play when decisions about diplomacy and social interaction are made, because he's intentionally playing this guy to be very, very tone deaf in the social universe. We had another player who rolled a FIVE for his character's INT and yessir, he conscientiously played that character to be dumb as a fence post. It was great. I want players to have this opportunity for wild-and-woolly characters whose woolliness is not just by choice, but by design. Having at least some really low stats facilitates this.

So here's what we've done in my current campaign: I let them roll 4d6 and drop 1d6 seven times instead of six. They each then discarded their lowest stat. I still kind of dislike that approach, though, because it feels a little too soft and cuddly. The next time I DM, I think I'll go for rolling all six stats with 4d6 and drop 1d6, but have them do the whole sequence twice (or even roll once and build the other with point-buy). They'll then choose whichever of the two sets of stats they prefer. What's the advantage to this? Well, it preserves the excitement and randomness of rolling, but it also keeps alive the very real possibility of one's favorite set including one or two stats that are notably low. Min/maxers can go for broke with that, but players who shy away from major weaknesses in their characters don't have to.

Anyway, this is where my head is today.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So here's what we've done in my current campaign: I let them roll 4d6 and drop 1d6 seven times instead of six. I still kind of dislike that approach, though, because it feels a little too soft and cuddly

We did 3d6 seven times, keep the best six scores, and it worked well without being too "soft and cuddly".

Another option I would like to suggest I've done is you roll three sets of scores, but they are in order, and you pick one of the three sets to play. That has gotten good responses for people who like the idea of fate deciding not only the scores but where the PC's strengths and weaknesses lie.

Finally, with 4d6 drop lowest, doing two sets in order might appeal to some of your players, with the additional 7th roll of 4d6 drop lowest to replace any one score of your choice. This way, if the player really wants a high DEX, but both sets have low-average DEX, that 7th roll might be good enough to allow them to play their concept.

One thing I personally like about rolling in order myself is that you can end up with a non-optimal version. Why should every fighter have STR or DEX 14 or better? A fighter can be a fighter with lower scores. Back in AD&D I had a cleric with all scores from 9 to 12, and just one twelve, which was in Wisdom--so he actually had a 5% chance to FAIL every spell he cast! It only happened a few times that I rolled 5% or lower, but it added something to the game that our main healer/priest was basically mediocre.

 

[Oofta]

On one hand I favor the position of those here who dislike huge variations in PC stats, but on the other hand I do still like having players roll for stats. Seems a bit off to hold both those preferences, right? Lemme explain it.

The described dilemma faced by Oofta's wife put a sour taste in my mouth; I don't think I would ever respond to her situation in that way as DM or want to play a PC under a DM who did. We're all supposed to be bonding with each other around the table and, if not being or becoming friends, at least being mutually friendly, aren't we? I take "Yes" as an axiomatic premise and will not entertain forms of play that do not. So that whole situation with her sucked. Accordingly, no "3d6 in order as rolled and if you don't like it, suck it up, babycakes!" Not in my games, thank you.

But now on the other side I don't really want a point-buy system, either. As DM, I'd always be happy to allow a player to use that option, but I don't want to enforce it on everyone. A lot of players enjoy the excitement of rolling for stats in the initial character build and I think the randomness it introduces does give each player an interesting range of possibilities and dilemmas to solve that we wouldn't find in point-buy. For instance, I have a player who rolled very high on his primary stat, but also very low on WIS. This has resulted in some wildly entertaining game play when decisions about diplomacy and social interaction are made, because he's intentionally playing this guy to be very, very tone deaf in the social universe. We had another player who rolled a FIVE for his character's INT and yessir, he conscientiously played that character to be dumb as a fence post. It was great. I want players to have this opportunity for wild-and-woolly characters whose woolliness is not just by choice, but by design. Having at least some really low stats facilitates this.

So here's what we've done in my current campaign: I let them roll 4d6 and drop 1d6 seven times instead of six. I still kind of dislike that approach, though, because it feels a little too soft and cuddly. The next time I DM, I think I'll go for rolling all six stats with 4d6 and drop 1d6, but have them do the whole sequence twice. They'll then choose whichever of the two sets of stats they prefer. What's the advantage to this? Well, it preserves the excitement and randomness of rolling, but it also keeps alive the very real possibility of one's favorite set including one or two stats that are notably low. Min/maxers can go for broke with that, but players who shy away from major weaknesses in their characters don't have to.

Anyway, this is where my head is today.

I freely admit I don't get how "excitement for a 1 time roll" trumps "I have a character I like and will have fun playing for at least a year". But I also get that some people like the randomness.

But can't you randomize in different ways? Have a DM create a number of arrays, say 20 or so, using point buy. You could also expand the number range a bit, use 3.5's method which goes up to 18. Then have people roll randomly for the array they get, possibly randomly roll for sequence or for class. Heck, randomly roll for race if you want.

You get all the randomness you want (and some PCs will be more min/maxed than others) while still being on even footing for the rest of the campaign.

 

[gamerprinter]

Well for Starfinder RPG I do point buy, but for Pathfinder, D&D and everything before that, roll 6 sided dice, obtain the best 3 rolls out of 5, 1's don't count, for all attributes, then add your race/class modifiers and go from there...

 

[Maxperson]

You may find playing characters with vastly different inherent capabilities fun, I don't.

That pretty much doesn't exist in 5e, though. I can have a 14 in my prime stat and you can have a 20, and there won't be vastly different inherent capabilities. It will be somewhat noticeable by that point, but not by a lot.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I freely admit I don't get how "excitement for a 1 time roll" trumps "I have a character I like and will have fun playing for at least a year". But I also get that some people like the randomness.

100% this

I don't want one lucky or unlucky roll to change the next year of my dowwn time.

The way I see most 'roll' players fix this is to cheat in 1 way or another

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That pretty much doesn't exist in 5e, though. I can have a 14 in my prime stat and you can have a 20, and there won't be vastly different inherent capabilities. It will be somewhat noticeable by that point, but not by a lot.

what you just wrote is a 6pt in stat 3pt in modifier difference...

 

[Guest 7034872]

I freely admit I don't get how "excitement for a 1 time roll" trumps "I have a character I like and will have fun playing for at least a year". But I also get that some people like the randomness.

Right. That's why I prefer to let those who want to roll go ahead and roll.

But can't you randomize in different ways? Have a DM create a number of arrays, say 20 or so, using point buy. You could also expand the number range a bit, use 3.5's method which goes up to 18. Then have people roll randomly for the array they get, possibly randomly roll for sequence or for class. Heck, randomly roll for race if you want.

That is another option I've considered (and I'm undecided on it): let 'em do the point-buy, but also let them expand the number range so they can go quite high on one stat at the price of going quite low on at least one other. It's an interesting option.

I just know my group of players pretty well and I'm pretty sure they'll prefer to roll instead, so I want to honor their preferences.

You get all the randomness you want (and some PCs will be more min/maxed than others) while still being on even footing for the rest of the campaign.

Maybe not all the randomness they want, but at least all the variation in stats, yeah. I mean, it's not a bad idea at all.

 

[James Gasik]

With 5e, as long as the stat variance isn't too extreme, it doesn't matter much. Like if one guy has all 15's and another guy has all 17's, it's not a big deal.

I grew up with rolling as the default, and while I know it has issues, no other system is perfect either- some classes are designed wanting more good ability scores than others. And while 5e does use all 6 ability scores as saves, some are uncommon saves, or have less of an impact when you fail them.

So you'll see with point buy things like Wizards who are giant brains on legs with noodles for arms and they're fine, but then Monks who keep frowning at their stats because they can't just burn a spell slot for +1 leather armor and are expected to actually enter melee.

So what I generally do is, I use whatever method the group wants. If it's point buy, I give out more points than standard, because they won't matter much for the classes that have less stat requirements, and it's a godsend to those that do.

If we're rolling and someone has a 15 and someone else has a 18, then I'll note that, at some point, that weaker character needs a boon or one of those "make my stat a 19" items at some point. I have no problems offering players bennies for keeping a detailed campaign journal or writing a lengthy background (I usually turn in 6 pages for my own characters, lol, and do research into the setting to have a lore friendly character, because I'm a nerd like that), or even drawing fanart of characters or maps and such.

Because at the end of the day, even if somehow, magically, everyone ends up with all 12's or all 18's, it's not super hard to adjust the numbers.

Or be careful when selecting monsters, since two creatures of the same CR can have very different bonuses.

 

[Maxperson]

I freely admit I don't get how "excitement for a 1 time roll" trumps "I have a character I like and will have fun playing for at least a year". But I also get that some people like the randomness.

A character is far more than the stats. The class has far more to do with how well you do and what you can do than your stats do. Stats in 5e just aren't all that important, unlike how they were in the non-bounded editions.