ability roll cheating

[FreeTheSlaves]

My advise to to the DM who doesn't feel comfortable confronting the probable stat cheater is to let him have his character but bump the stats for any critter he confronts. +4 hit/ +4 damage, +4 hit pts per HD, etc... but the critters the others confront do not get the bump.

I told my PCs a long time ago that I dont care if they cheat (of course, I *do* care, and they know this), but if I catch them, then they owe me TWO cheats against them.

These are both examples of disastrous 'advice' to be giving; in both examples it is a case of passive-aggressiveness which will easily be perceived as unfair & lead to further conflict. I cannot imagine either being successful unless your definition of success is to wreck the gaming harmony.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

but doesn't this result in all the characters being near clones of every other character that shares the same class? ... Oh you're a fighter? I guess that means you have a 15 strength, 14 dexterity, 13 Constitution, etc... .

Exactly the same thing occurs with any sub-system that allows you to arrange to suit.

 

[S'mon]

One thing I've noticed is that, even with the "roll-in-front-of-the-GM" method, all the players don't typically play what they rolled. Inevitably, one character has well above average stats and one character either is significatly lower than everyone else (but not in the official level where you are allowed to reroll) or has nothing that stands out (all stats are 12-14, for example). Usually, the DM either allows the lower player reroll or the player resents having the lower character.

I tend to agree. In my current game the rule is either:

1. Take 28 PB or
2. Roll 3/4d6 x 6 in front of GM, reroll if net mods are +3 or less.

BTW all stats 12-14 might be a good PC for certain classes, eg Monk.

I do find with rolling players tend to divide into those who roll 50+ point PCs and those who roll 30-point PCs; in future I am very inclined to just use PB or an array.

 

[Sledge]

I've seen a character with 18, 17, 17, 16, 13, 12 recently. Doesn't bother me, but then again I always check abilities to make sure players are in line with each other. If they want high scores, that's fine, but make sure the others do as well.

 

[Gorrstagg]

I recently started a new campaign with some buddies I haven't gamed with in a few years. This is the first campaign that I have actually poured all of my time and resources into; all of my previous ones were usually planned in a very half-assed way (by my own standards) and rarely lasted more than 6 games. We've played twice so far, finishing up the first adventure I designed. In short, things are going well. Everyone is very enthusiastic about how things are going and about the world I've spent a great deal of time crafting. I was even told that I am their best DM which, while flattering, isn't a surprise—I've know all the others. That certainly doesn't go to my head though, especially when there are many here at EN World who put me to great shame. I'm just pleased that they are pleased. But, on to my problem...

One of my players has a serious history of fudging his stat rolls. It's now even rubbed off on his wife, our newest player. He's done this to me before, some years back. But this time, I was prepared (or thought I was). In anticipation for the new campaign, I sent out a pamphlet to all my players detailing the house rules. The first rule was very clear and to the point: Any characters which clearly had unreasonable stats (like three 17s or 18s) would not be accepted in my game.

There are many reasons for this, and I'm sure most of you DMs out there can understand why. The reason which concerns me the most is that the character would be overpowered compared to the other PCs, all of who have more well-rounded stat pools.

Let me quote to you the stats he submitted to me for his Goliath Barbarian. Keep in mind that these are the actual rolls BEFORE the Goliath stat mods (which happen to be Str +4, Dex -2, Con +2)

STR 17
DEX 18
CON 17
INT 17
WIS 16
CHA 16

So my question to you all is: would you accept such a character when all your other players have a more reasonable set of stats? (To give you some comparison, here is another of my PCs. An elf ranger (after racial mods): str 16, dex 16, con 11, int 12, wis 13, cha 11)

I think this player is testing me. Has this happened to you and how did you deal with it? I stupidly let him play this character without giving his sheet a full once-over and I can already tell he is going to fight me on this if I try to modify his stats.

Is it best to just let this slide as long as the other players are having fun?

I know, I slipped up and he got away with it, but now I need advice.

Zulithe, just to put this into perspective for you. Those stats your buddy ahem rolled up there.. (I don't buy it for a single moment without someone being there independently to see them rolled.) add up to a 75 point character in a point buy system.

Let's put this into perspective, a regular expected PC is typically built with 25 points. That's what's known as an elite array. Which all the iconic pc's were designed with.

Now, dice rolling typically can exceed that a bit if you use the 4d6 drop the lowest, but again, it shouldn't vary that much except for the whole part of how many times you let them roll.

Now, again perspective, all the monsters are designed with the pc's having a 25 point array. Letting your players feel heroic could let you put their stat buy points at a 28-32. I'm personally a pretty tough DM, and find that 32 points is just the right amount for the PC's to feel heroic, but not absurdly powerful. They even find that 32 points is a bit harsh. Tough. I'm training them into going with the 32 point buy. And they have come around to it.

Now, your guy with the 75 point array, has the stats of..

3!!!! PC's.

Meaning that one person is almost the equivalent of an entire party all by themselves.


So now we get to the what to do part of this problem. As a DM your going to have to put your foot down and get your folks in line with the game mechanics. Let the know, that your seriously considering point buy.. (And for them I would recommend 32 points), and that it will be starting.. Immediately after their new pc's die.

Yep that's right, they get to keep their rolled PC's. (Except you need to talk to your one guy.. that 75 point pc is absurdly powerful. And not even remotely fair.. at all. Fair to him, you, the other players. Tell him that your going to do something once, for him, your going to give him 40 points for his first pc in a point buy system.)

But when that pc dies, or retires from the party, the next PC that player brings in, is only going to get a 32 point buy.

I did this with my group, and it's been like night and day. Now no one even bothers rolling up pc's, as they get to simply spend the points, and get a good pc out of the deal.

What's a good pc.. well with 32 points.. let's see some example stats..

numbers total modifier (the +x from each stat added together)
14,14,14,14,14,10 +10
16,14,14,14,10,10 +9
16,15,14,14,10,08 +8
16,16,14,14,08,08 +8
15,15,15,14,10,08 +7
15,15,15,15,08,08 +6
18,14,14,10,10,08 +7
18,14,14,12,10,08 +8
17,14,14,14,10,09 +8
17,16,14,10,08,08 +6

The long and short, more characters will be balanced out over the long run, and a +2 to a stat is not really something to sneeze at.. it's actually pretty darn useful to have a +2 in all but one stat... definately gives some focus if you will.

Oh and your buddy's total modifer is a +19. Yeah.. a +19!!

So don't feel bad.. just get them to convert to your new system.. and go on from there.

It really makes your life as a DM much easier.

In any case.. you'll notice something..

 

[Thanee]

As for the disadvantages of Point Buy (sterile, too 'optimized', etc), I like methods, which use Point Buy or something with a similar amount of control and mix in some randomness to mess things up a little.

The last campaign, I've started, I had the players make their characters with 28 PB and then roll 6d6, increasing by one point any stat rolled (with 1: Str, 2: Dex, 3: Con, 4: Int, 5: Wis, 6: Cha), but no higher than 18. Worked quite well with pretty good stats (i.e. 35~36 PB, but that's easily reduced to being more like 32~33 PB by using 25 PB as base or the Elite Array).

I did this with my group, and it's been like night and day. Now no one even bothers rolling up pc's, as they get to simply spend the points, and get a good pc out of the deal.

We had started using PB in our first 3.0 campaign, but we prefer some (not too much, tho!) randomness...

it's actually pretty darn useful to have a +2 in all but one stat...

My Favored Soul has stats like that, using PB.

Bye
Thanee

 

[MonsterMash]

I check all characters before the campaign unless I used point buy, normally I do a character creation session with 4d6 rolled in front of me and usually the other players. If somebody did get a character with those sort of stats in those conditions, then I would allow it in the campaign, despite the unbalancing potential.

 

[orsal]

Now, your guy with the 75 point array, has the stats of..

3!!!! PC's.

Meaning that one person is almost the equivalent of an entire party all by themselves.

How do you get that? The first level fighter with strength 18 can make one attack per round, although with +5 to hit. Three average fighters with strength 18, get 3 hits, each one hitting only 10% less often than the uberfighter. If they're fighting a character with (e.g.) AC 18, and let's say all use weapons with average damage 5+STR bonus, the uberfighter will hit 40% of the time and do an average 9 HP per hit, for an average 3.6 HP per attack. The other three will each hit 30% of the time, doing an average 7 HP per hit, totaling and average of 6.3 points per attack.

Similar analysis for the other abilities. And this doesn't even take into account that the party of three is much more well-rounded than the uberhero.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Cheating is changing a score of 14 to an 18 when noone is looking. Submitting a PC with stats like 17, 18, 17, 17, 16, 16 is... it's LAUGHABLE! Clearly the player either read your restrictions on rolling characters and then ignored them, or didn't bother to read them in the first place. While theoretically possible with best 3/4d6 the actual probability is so astronomical it doesn't even bear contemplation.

If you DON'T disallow this character you do a disservice to EVERYONE; to yourself, the player in question, and in such an eggregious case as this to the other players as well who are willingly playing within restrictions that this individual seems to think don't apply to himself. At this point it isn't about being UNKIND to one player, it's about being unacceptably unfair to all the other players and you have an OBLIGATION to remove the character from the game, to openly admonish the player in question, and to require all his future rolls for anything and everything to be publicly witnessed until such time as he has EARNED your trust.

And for future reference there is no reason whatsoever you really ought to be obligated to have players use arrays or point buy methods for character creation - but it DOES mean that if you have one or more players that you can't trust, then character creation CANNOT be done unseen at home. If you cannot or will not trust a player in this regard then if you DO allow him to create characters unwitnessed by you then you need to force him to use a "cheat-proof" method like an array or point-buy.

 

[Dark Jezter]

As many others have pointed out, the solution is simple: Have the players roll up their ability scores in front of the DM.

I once gamed with a guy whose characters always had exceptionally high ability scores (usually 1 or 2 18s, a couple of 17s and 16s, and no ability ever below 14). When we decided to have characters start rolling their stats up in front of the DM, that player's characters started having much more reasonable stats.

Another option is point buy, which is cheat-proof because the DM can just look at the character's abilities and do a little math to determine if the player spent more points than they should have.