D&D 5E 4d6 Drop the Lowest Etiquette

[lowkey13]

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[Jaelommiss]

I allow point buy, standard array, or drawing from a deck of cards I've made. The deck contains 18 playing cards that add up to 72 (3x2, 4x3,4,5, 3x6). Six piles of three cards are made randomly. The cumulative value of each pile is one ability score. While the potential for a score as low as 6 is possible, a score of 18 is also possible, although both cases are incredibly unlikely. In either case, the extreme result will skew the remaining scores in the opposite direction because there is no replacement.

To illustrate I have made six sets of three cards:
3,3,5 - 11
5,6,6 - 17
2,4,6 - 12
3,4,5 - 12
2,4,4 - 10
2,3,5 - 10

In this situation the character would have an array of 10, 10, 11, 12, 12, 17 to be distributed as desired. The high 17 is offset by utterly average scores everywhere else.

I'm yet to see an unbalanced character while using this method.

 

[Yunru]

My preferred method of rolling for players is 4d6, drop lowest one, roll eight times, drop second lowest score, then arrange (sometimes I have them not arrange, and it's in order, but with the second lowest score still dropped).

Thoughts on this-
I think random is good.
It generally results in overall higher ability scores, which players like for the feeling of heroism. (That said, straight out 18 are still fairly rare, although 17s do pop up pretty often).
The extra roll biases in favor of slightly good scores.
Having players keep their *worst* roll ensures that most players will have one "bad" ability.

I have kept this since 1e and BECMI (it was an evolution to this). That said, I don't play with feats, so I don't worry about that. I have noticed that the added ability improvements at certain levels have allowed players to hit "20" in core abilities. I'm not sure how I feel about that so far; I haven't run 5e enough to have a full opinion.

Ironically 17 should be rarer than 18, significantly so.
6, 6, 5, >6 is a lot harder to roll than 6, 6, 6.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Ahrimon]

I've used almost every method under the sun over the years and I can't really say that I have a preference. I like the idea of rolling and getting that awesome 18, but at the same time I like points or array to ensure that there isn't a super character in the group.

I have been wanting to try an idea though. Have a quick roll-off and then starting with the highest roller and going around the table have each player roll one 4d6-L and keep going until we fill a 6x6 array. Then, again in order, each player can pick any row, column, or full diagonal for their stats. That way it's fully random and no player is at the mercy of the dice gods.

 

[Yunru]

Not exactly. If you do out the math, you'll find that the odds of rolling a 17 are roughly 3x the odds of rolling an 18 (a little more than 4% as opposed to ~1.5%). You also have a litle more than a 17% chance of rolling a 15 or 16.

(Why? Math. You're also missing that you're dropping a die, and the 5 can occur on any of the independent rolls, whereas a 6 must occur on 3 of the four rolls- 5,6,6, 6,5,6, 6,6,5).

No, no I'm not. You drop the lowest. Rolling 3 sixes means that whatever the forth die is, you've 18. That's a 1 in 216 chance. Compared to 17, which requires two 6s and a 5, and a forth die that can be no higher than 5. That's a 5 in 1296 chance.

Also; more than one operation: Maths. Get it right America

18: 6, 6, 6, 6
18: 6, 6, 6, 5
18: 6, 6, 6, 4
18: 6, 6, 6, 3
18: 6, 6, 6, 2
18: 6, 6, 6, 1
17: 6, 6, 5, 5
17: 6, 6, 5, 4
17: 6, 6, 5, 3
17: 6, 6, 5, 2
17: 6, 6, 5, 1

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Yunru]

Okay- have you actually run the distribution? Have you looked at the percentages? What I told you is factually correct. But let's use a quick example of rolls-

1 6 6 6
2 6 6 6
3 6 6 6
4 6 6 6
5 6 6 6
6 6 6 6

1 5 6 6
1 6 5 6
1 6 6 5
2 5 6 6
2 6 5 6
3 6 6 5
Are you starting to see a pattern? This is pretty easy to program, if you want to run it, say, a million times and see the actual frequency that comes up.

Don't need to. There are exactly 6 different results that give 18. There are 5 that give 17.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Yunru]

EDIT- I saw your numbers- you keep missing that the 5 can be any of the three numbers; the six *must* be all of the non-discarded numbers.

No, it doesn't. Because you don't deop the forth, you drop the lowest. Which means you only drop a 6 if you've 4 sixes. The sixes will always be the non-discarded numbers by their very nature as the highest number possible.