+12 Attribute system

[garrowolf]

People spend a lot of time trying to roll up great rolls. Actually I find it irritating because this is the point that you have characters with annoyingly low stats or you suspect the guy beside you has cheated and given himself the best stats. It also takes WAY too much time during character creation.

Well I noticed that the created characters in 3.0 or 3.5 (I can remember which) all had about a total of +12 to their attribute bonuses. So I thought why not make this very simple.

Create your character the other way around. You get +12 to spend on your attributes. Nothing above +3. If you want to you can lower an attribute to -1 and get a +1 somewhere else but you still have a total of +12.

Once you have them assigned then roll one dice. If it is even then your first attribute - str will be the even attribute that corresponds to that attribute bonus, then your dex is odd, then even then odd.

This way you create a character like you want, now one has to suspect each other (unless someone can't count to 12 correctly), and it's fast!

If you want to create a heroic game then use a higher number such as +16.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While it wasn't formulated quite that way, a buddy of mine (a math whiz) started doing essentially just that for his D&D games.

He reasoned that D&D PCs were "heroic," and had at least slightly superior stats, so he set the bar for an average "heroic" stat at 14. As you'll no doubt notice, that corresponds to your "+12," but it can have some differences as you start shuffling points around.

His limitations was that no initial stat could be over 18 without some kind of mechanical reason- a racial modifier, for instance, or an age modifier. And if you DID have some such modifier, you still had to account for it with your other stats. So if you were playing a Githzerai with a +2 Wis and +6Dex, you'd have to drop other stats enough to account for the unusual stat mods- the average of your stats still had to be 14.

It actually worked pretty well.

However, I noticed that it penalized PCs with unusual racial stat mods- since they still had their LAs and other factors to deal with- so when I adopted that system as an optional stat generation system, I altered it somewhat.

My version is a 2 step process. In it, you still must have your stats average out to 14 and max out at 18- just like his. However, after that, you get full value for whatever unusual mods from age or race, etc. that your PC might have. Thus, the aforementioned Githzerai wouldn't have to lower some other stat to account for his +6Dex mod.

 

[garrowolf]

Oh No. Sorry I was vague about that! Your racial mods are a separate issue. I'm just talking about that first attribute spread. Then add your racial mods to that. They are not under those limits.
Sorry about that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

IOW, your system is very much like my modified version of my buddy's system.

Like I said- I'm pretty satisfied with it. I use it as my main alternative stat generation system. Players always have the option of rolling 4d4 x 6 (re-rolling 1's) and arranging as they see fit if they so choose. I'll also let someone pick their stats if they have a good RP reason to do so...such as when I (long ago) asked a DM to let me play Bear, a Ftr with 18s for Str, Dex & Con, but 6's for Int, Wis, & Cha.

(But that story has been told many a time on these boards.)

 

[garrowolf]

cool
please check out my new d20 nexus system for more ideas

Nexus D20 Wiki