D&D 5E Array v 4d6: Punishment? Or overlooked data

Oofta said:

I think some people like rolling because of optimization bias - we assume we're going to be the lucky one that gets that 18, not that person that gets as single 12 as our high score. I can only speak from my personal experience of course but way back when we rolled the PCs with low stats tended to die early on or decided to stay on the farm. For that matter when I play a video game that uses rolling for ability scores I almost always hit the "reroll" button until I get something I like.

When people discuss their rolling options, many people do us a modified 4d6 drop lowest. Minimum score is 8, roll until you get something you like, everybody chooses from a single set of rolls, roll n times and so on. Not universal of course, but quite common. If someone rolls truly bad and has a high attribute of 6 would you really expect a person to play that PC? Do you force them to continue playing after the PC dies?

My own personal experience is that the only thing gained from rolling is that some PCs will be statistically significantly better than others in the same group. Great if you happen to be on the high end but people who like playing the ones on the lower end are the exception not the rule.

Click to expand...

Sacrosanct said:

I thought I had posted one of the original character sheets* of my one of my highest level PCs I had in AD&D a few years ago. I went back through my media files. Yep. Here he is. For a 9th level fighter, compared to 5e, these stats are lower than point buy would be. For a 1st level fighter, they are only 1 point higher than point buy. Then consider he had some of the best stats I had rolled (a factor to why he lived to level 9) and I'm pretty sure he had had a stat bonus from an adventure in Castle Amber. So....the claim every table had higher than point buy isn't true, and it's certainly not true that "Die rolling is just a way to play higher powered characters while pretending that it's "fair" or something like that."

*this wasn't the original character sheet, obviously, but the one I was using when I retired him sometime in the mid 80s.

View attachment 265249

Click to expand...

Oofta said:

I did not say that PC will always have better ability scores than you get with point buy. I said optimism bias makes people believe they will get higher scores. Big difference.

I would also note that these are actually pretty good stats, 17 strength and 16 con with nothing below a 9? These are not bad. I've seen PCs that had a single 14, a 12 and everything else well below 10 after racial adjustments. Meanwhile someone else at the table had 2 18s and nothing below a 12. The disparity was obvious.

EDIT: my own experience was that we were quite "generous" when it came to rolling.

Click to expand...

Oofta said:

I'm glad it worked for you. It's a very specific build with what I consider over-generous items and number of combats, whether it's in a published mod or not. I also think the bladesinger ability is overpowered because it can stack with mage armor and dex bonus.

I just think your PC was the exception to the general rule in games I've experienced.

Click to expand...

Lanefan said:

I wonder if the difference here simply lies in your DM and @Oofta 's DM tending to throw different types of challenges and combats against the party.

From what you say above, my impression (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that your DM goes after the front-liners with lots of melee while not hammering the back-liners so much with archery or AoE spells or Giants' thrown boulders. That, and-or your DM tends to be more generous in giving your PCs time to get all those defensive spells away before combat begins, which obviously can make a huge difference.

Click to expand...

Hussar said:

Well, frankly, yeah, you're right. It doesn't really matter. About the only place where it does start to creep in is when people talk about the game being on "easy mode" or "combat as sport" (I think I'm using that right). That sort of thing.

When a character with significantly higher stats is effectively a level higher than whatever the character sheet says. More spells, better success rates, more HP, etc. Just like a higher level character. Which then tends to roll right into the notion that the game isn't "balanced" and encounters are too "easy".

In the Venn diagram of people who complain about balance, and the people who die roll their characters, there is significant overlap.

Click to expand...

Oofta said:

I think this is more of a problem with an over generous DM giving you a 2 rare items at low levels, too few combats between long rests and the bladesinger class which IMHO is overpowered. Bladesong to add your int mod to AC is just too much. This one specific build doesn't rely as much on con which is why as a DM I'd throw in AOE and spells. I've personally never seen anyone do a PC this maxed out for AC, definitely not before level 10.

There's an exception to every rule, including this one. It wouldn't work in my campaign, but if you had fun with it go for it! Meanwhile in 98% of cases I still think an 8 con will be a mistake for most PCs.

Click to expand...

doctorbadwolf said:

Hopefully the 1dnd core books have better advice on building and running encounters.

I'd need some manner of evidence to take this claim seriously.

This, basically (other than BS being overpowered). Absorb Elements didn't save my friend's BS from a Behir lightning attack taking him down. Any backfielder in my group's games that isn't getting attacked...well, that just doesn't exist. No enemy is letting half the party plink away at them with impunity.

The only way to have enough spell slots to get the experience being discussed is to play the wizard as a fighter, while dealing much less damage than a fighter would, which means there is no reason for enemies to focus on you. In my games, for sure, you'd not be especially helpful to your party playing like that.

Click to expand...

Oofta said:

It's a very specific niche build that's reliant on a lot of factors. I'm not going to yuck on someone's yum, I've just never seen anything that comes close to this, at least not at lower levels. Also very dependent on types of encounters and so on.

Click to expand...

ECMO3 said:

I have played with 11 different DMs in the past 2 years and what I said is broadly applicable for all of them. I also did not say characters don't go down, they do, but Wizards specifically rarely go down. Those that go down are typically the characters with the highest hit points (except Barbarians), because they are being targeted the most (bladesingers excepted) and in addition attacks that would be nullified or halved on the wizard they take the full damage on.

Click to expand...

ECMO3 said:

She also got a pretty awesome dragontooth dagger and there was a staff of fire she took off of a dead Wizard, but did not use because she had no attunement slots and a spider staff she took off a Drow but only used for a little while.

Those were probably 5 of the 6 best items that party got over the whole campaign and yes she got them all, but it was luck of the draw.

Click to expand...