Alternate ability score generation system

[Trainz]

Well, actually, no, not really. It's 2004, not 1984 or whenever the original UA book comes out. I myself want to have some flexibility in character generation, not be shackled to the traditions of the past. YMMV.

This is by no means intended to be shackles. This is to be ANOTHER option that players could pick, in ADDITION to the systems already in place. If you want an optimum single classed representative of the class you picked, you could choose that system. If not, you pick one of the other systems.

More options != shackles !

And I also did this as an exercise in nostalgia !

 

[Grazzt]

Unless I am mistaken, the original UA system mentioned above was included so players had a better chance of getting into a class they really wanted (such as paladin, which required a Cha 17 to get into).

The system (at least under its original intention) isnt needed in 3e/3.5 since they removed ability score requirements for classes.

 

[ichabod]

It's not supposed to be flexible. Don't you guys remember the table from 1st Ed Unearthed Arcana ? It's the same thing !

This is a generation system for someone who wants to play a typical single classed individual of any given class. If you want a PC with high stats in non-typical places, you must pick a different system (4d6, 5d6 or point-buy).

Ichabod: my die rolls go from 8d6 to 3d6. Your table goes from 9d6 to 4d6.

I am very interested about what your table represents, but I am statistically impaired, so please spell it out for me.

Ah, sorry, I thought the old UA was 4-9, so I just went with that without looking to closely. For 3d6, mean and median are 10.5, Q3 is 13 and Q1 is 8.

The mean is the average of all of the possible rolls, and that is for the sum of the three highest dice out of however many were rolled. The median is a prefered measure of the center, it is the number that half of the rolls are below, and half of the rolls are above. For example, if you have 1, 2, and 6, their mean is (1+2+6)/3 = 3, but their median is 2 (the middle number).

The quartiles are an extension of the median. The first quartile is the highest number that no more than 25% of the rolls are less than or equal to. The third quartile is the highest number that no more than 75% of the rolls are less than or equal to. These numbers are just typical numbers that statisticians use to describe distributions of numbers.

I'd go with at least 5d6 for the alternative to this system, maybe even 6d6. I haven't analyzed the ordinal probabilities for the type of system you're proposing, but the straight medians come out to slightly better than the ordinal medians for 5d6, which suggests the ordinal medians for 3-8d6 are actually significantly better than those for 5d6.

 

[D+1]

Why the desire to play such high stat characters?

Two [edit!], no THREE things you need to remember about the UA method: First, it was supposed to be used only for human characters. Second, high stats were the ONLY stats with bonuses before 3E. This was an attempt to get bonuses PERIOD, which simply because of the way the game was built required high stats. Third, the dice ranged from 9d6 down to 3d6 - seven stats all told. That's because UA added Comeliness as a seventh stat. just 2cp.

 

[CCamfield]

This is by no means intended to be shackles. This is to be ANOTHER option that players could pick, in ADDITION to the systems already in place. If you want an optimum single classed representative of the class you picked, you could choose that system. If not, you pick one of the other systems.

Sorry Trainz, I've been pretty harsh in this thread. I guess if 5d6 might be the other option for rolling for stats this would be pretty balanced. Compared with 4d6, it's rolling a lot more dice.

 

[Crothian]

This is a generation system for someone who wants to play a typical single classed individual of any given class. If you want a PC with high stats in non-typical places, you must pick a different system (4d6, 5d6 or point-buy).

But trying to define the Typical single classed isn't workjing to well. For your typicals you have clerics and druids getting 3d6 Int, menaing they aren't going to be too bright. I don't think that is typical for them.

Also, Grazzt is right about why these type of character generation was in place. The reason to have this is no longer needed.

 

[Trainz]

I bow to the general wisdom and insight of the ENworlders.

 

[CapnZapp]

In case anyone's interested, here are the means and quartiles for the above rolls:

9d6      8d6      7d6       6d6      5d6      4d6
15.77    15.39    14.90     14.27    13.43    12.24
17       17       17        16       15       14
16       16       15        15       14       12
15       14       14        13       12       10

Thank you.

 

[CapnZapp]

Well, actually, no, not really. It's 2004, not 1984 or whenever the original UA book comes out. I myself want to have some flexibility in character generation, not be shackled to the traditions of the past. YMMV.

It's actually 2019, and the shackles to traditions past are holding just fine