4d6 (Drop Lowest) Probability Curve

[dcollins]

Never saw one, so I made one. Who knows, maybe someone else finds it interesting: www.superdan.net/dndmisc/4d6curve.html

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Never saw one, so I made one. Who knows, maybe someone else finds it interesting: www.superdan.net/dndmisc/4d6curve.html

I find it interesting. The odds of getting an '18' really jump up (from 3d6 method)! From, what, 0.39% to 1.62%--wow.

 

[Fast Learner]

Re: Re: 4d6 (Drop Lowest) Probability Curve

I find it interesting. The odds of getting an '18' really jump up (from 3d6 method)! From, what, 0.39% to 1.62%--wow.

Which, as I'm sure you know but may not be obvious to those not into math, is significant because it becomes four times as likely. A pretty big deal, really.

 

[Cheiromancer]

And check out the rest of Daniel Collins' site. A lot of very interesting DnD related material!

-Cheiromancer

 

[Fyrie]

I'd like to see the curve for 4d6 - ignore 1s.

 

[NemesisPress]

Even at 4 times the chances, that doesn't explain all the 18s I keep seeing out there!

But the graph is nice, because it shows that the entire bell curve is shifted to the right by the average roll on one die.

 

[hong]

Re: Re: Re: 4d6 (Drop Lowest) Probability Curve

Which, as I'm sure you know but may not be obvious to those not into math, is significant because it becomes four times as likely. A pretty big deal, really.

It's significant in the _long run_, if you're generating tons of characters and their average or aggregate stats are important in some way. It isn't that significant if you're generating one character.

If you really absolutely positively must have an 18 or any other high stat, you should use point buy.

 

[Fast Learner]

Re: Re: Re: Re: 4d6 (Drop Lowest) Probability Curve

It's significant in the _long run_, if you're generating tons of characters and their average or aggregate stats are important in some way. It isn't that significant if you're generating one character.

If you really absolutely positively must have an 18 or any other high stat, you should use point buy.

if you must have one, then yes, use point-buy.

With six rolls and 3d6 you'll get an 18 once every 43 characters (roughly), but with six rolls and 4d6 you'll get an 18 once every 10 characters.

If you have 5 PCs in each campaign then one character will get an 18 in every other campaign instead of every eight campaigns.

Yes, the odds are still low, but it's still a substantial difference, imo.

 

[333 Dave]

Reroll 1s then drop lowest. That'll screw up your little calculations a bit .