D&D 5E Stats, and how do you generate them

In the current campaign I am in, we generated them randomly. I much prefer the standard array approach, however.

In random, it’s not the low scores that bother me because most groups tend to allow re-rolls if the overall profile is awful, but there is no redress on very high rolls. I’ve seen players roll things like 18, three 17s, a 15 and a 14 before. So what? Well, if the gamer is well adjusted then fine, but some go all power-gamey - especially if other people in the party didn’t roll so well.

The standard array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8), however, manages to reinforce the abstract nature of Ability scores, while simply getting players to prioritise what they are good at, down to what they aren’t so good at. Everyone has a weakness too, which I actually like. Moreover, nobody feels weaker or stronger than anyone else and it gives plenty of room for improvement as characters progress in Levels. So, for me, it’s best.

I use a hybrid of rolling and array. It's intended to puts stats in roughly the same ballpark as point buy, although with significantly more variability and luck involved.

Roll 14d6.

Drop the 2 lowest rolls.

Pair two dice with one number from the following array: 6 5 5 4 4 3 (obviously, each die and each number in the array can only be used once).

Dartboard.



The players throw six darts. The number of the row they hit is the ability score.

It’s not directly about D&D5E, but in Traveller a common method of generating characteristics is to roll all the dice at once (12 of them) and then allow the player to combine two of them in any order for each individual characteristic (the Traveller range is 2-12). This way you combine both random and points assign.

I suppose this is a similar to what you’re talking about?

Jester Canuck said:

Dartboard.

View attachment 66248

The players throw six darts. The number of the row they hit is the ability score.

Click to expand...

What happens if they hit the bullseye? Do they get a stat of 50?