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Message: <blockquote data-quote="arscott" data-source="post: 2178399" data-attributes="member: 17969">Let me just point out that 4d6 and 7 drop lowest aren't 'generous' rolling tecniques at all.  They're what 3rd ed assumes is average amongst player characters.They're also not consistent with the array you've got above.If you look at the 216 possible rolls on a 3d6, you'll find that:3 and 18 show up once each.4 and 17 show up 3 times each.5 and 16 show up 6 times each.6 and 15 show up 10 times each.7 and 14 show up 15 times each.8 and 13 show up 21 times each.9 and 12 show up 25 times each.10 and 11 show up 27 times each.There are six ability scores, so divide those 216 results up into six groups of thirty-six:the first group has the the '3', the '4's, the '5's, the '6's, the '7's, and one '8'.the second group has twenty '8's and sixteen '9'sthe third group has nine '9's and the '10'sthe fourth group has the '11's and nine '12'sthe fifth group has sixteen '12's and twenty '13'sand the sixth group has a '13', the '14's, the '15's, the '16's, the '17's, and the '18'.If you take the mean of each group you'd get:6.06, 8.44, 9.75, 11.25, 12.56, and 14.94 as the mean scores.Those aren't very useful, so you could take the median of each group instead.:6, 8, 10, 11, 13, and 15.  These are the same numbers you get by rounding the means to the nearest whole.those aren't very good scores for 3rd ed.  that's a 16 in point-buy, assuming that numbers lower than eight give points back.  (The DMG calls a point-buy of 15 'Low-powered')If you did the same thing using all 1296 possible rolls in a 4d6 drop one scheme (or if you cheat and use <a href="http://sullivan.pgh.pa.us/~ksulliva/ralph/dnd-stats.html" target="_blank">percentages</a>), you'll get 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16.  that's a point-buy of 27 (25 = 'standard', 28 = 'tougher')finally, if you split the 216 3d6 results into seven groups instead of six, you'd get 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, and a final result that's exactly halfway between 10 and 11.  drop the lowest for 8, 9, 10.5, 12, 13, and 15.  that's a point-buy of 20.5 (22 = 'Challenging').The system you've got on the other hand, is a 36 point buy (32 = 'High-powered')  If the 18/7 option is taken, that climbs up to 38.If that's what you want, go ahead.  but it's alot better than 4d6 drop one.</blockquote>

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