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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8385099" data-attributes="member: 6801228">Yes, the exact same 6 numbers, placed in six different slots. That is 720 possible combinations. So, please explain how over 700 combos is “cookie cutter”? It certainly isn’t unrealistic. And if your only acceptance of “equivalence” is going to be people IRL being assigned arbitrary values for their constitution, then there is nothing equivalent to even compare too, so we are going to have settle for “good enough”. Especially since your argument is comparing it to reality, and there is no equivalence to compare too.No, sorry, you made the claim right here. So, your claim, your words. You removed it because it was unrealistic. Followed by "Every PC isn't going to be bron with the same stats" which is only logical to say if that was what you mean by unrealistic.And even if you had  said that it was unrealsitic for the to have the same stats at level 2, which you didn't, then that is still completely unsupported. Heck, there are only 16 possible numbers they could have from rolling 3d6. Having the same six isn’t that far of a stretch for people who follow similar regimes.Most fastballs thrown by most Major League Pitchers average between 90 and 100 mph. The average NBA player is 6ft 6 inches. The average IQ of a surgeon is 105. The Marines have a physical fitness minimum they have to achieve to qualify for their ranks.Are they identical? No. But they aren't being abstracted into game terms, and can have 0.005 differences between them. But the very idea of having a minimum standard for atheltic training in a profession or education in a career speaks to this meaning that they work within a narrower range of these abstract numbers. And therefore matching these numbers is easy to imagine.Also, if they have an 18 strength before they begin training, and after level 1 they have an… 18 strength. How does that work? Their training was useless in building muscle and making them more effective? What if before you were educated you had an effective 11 Intelligence, but you absorbed information like a sponge and ended up at an 18 after you finished your training and reached level 1?The point isn’t that all of them are identical, but that they could logically end up in identical places based on their variety of experiences. Again, there are only 16 possible numbers to cover millions of people across multiple types of training. There is going to be overlap, there has to be overlap. There simply aren't enough combinations for every single person to be completely unique.Who cares what “tons” of tables do? Your issue is that you think it is unrealistic for people to share numbers. But, in my experience, even if you encourage people to use the array, some of them are going to roll. And if some people are rolling, then you may only have two or three people with the standard array. Which, unless they are playing the same class, still won’t be identical cookie cutter characters.Your concern, practically, is miniscule. You would need more than one person at the table to pick the standard array instead of rolling (rare) and then have them play the same exact class (even more rare) before you would even need to begin about them being "cookie cutters"Says who? Stories change. Archetypes are only collections of stories. It used to be the idea of a female warrior was impossible, they only existed so that it could be shown that they would lose to the true, manly hero.If the community decides that Dwarf Bards are awesome, no amount of “but it’s against type” is going to prevent that type from changing.They can mix it up physically, but about half of all clerics get a boost to cantrip casting. Also, Toll of the Dead works in melee range and is very good, keying off wisdom. Additionally, about half of clerics only get Medium armor, meaning they need at least a positive Dex to get their AC up.Array is 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. Even is it goes Wisdom, Constitution, Strength then Dexterity they will have a 12, which is a +1. They don’t particularly need charisma or Intelligence, and those might end up being the 10 or the 8.So, yes, more than likely the cleric has a positive dex. If that happens, then your dwarven cleric is just as graceful as the Average Elf.They aren’t completely different, because we are talking about rules for generating PCs. If the standard rules already end up with PCs more extraordinary and dexterous than the average elf, then why does it matter that the rules reflect the average elf? That has already failed, because every elf that is a PC is automatically extraordinary. They are as strong as the average orc, as tough as the average dwarf, as intelligent as the average gnome, ect ect ect.If you say that this doesn’t matter, because PCs are extraordinary, then it doesn’t matter if the PC rules are floating, because they are extraordinary anyways. Which also ties into how weird it is to have people insist that PCs are perfectly average people. They aren’t.</blockquote>

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