D&D 5E Assumptions about character creation

[MoonSong]

Then talk to your DM about that.

Quoting myself:

I don't like to ask for special permissions too much, more so as a long term strategy. A special permission works once or twice, living within the rules sets you for life.

I can live with the compromise of point buy. I'm high maintenance as it is, when I just have to have something I'm not afraid of asking. It just gets tiresome.

Not many of us want to play PCs with mental faculties worse than Forest Gump or physical abilities so bad that you'd qualify for disability here in the U.S. If that's your thing, though, have at it.

Yeah, I'm very aware my preferences aren't exactly mainstream. I wouldn't put them in those terms though.

 

[Charlaquin]

It’s not directly stated anywhere, but it’s evident from a deep analysis of the underlying math

I had never heard of bounded accuracy until I started reading the message boards. Im still not totally clear on what is it and at this point dont really care. But if this is truly the premise on which the math of the game is based itd have been nice that it was stated and briefly explained somewhere in the core books, which as far as I know it is not specifically. Might be alluded to or implied.

Bounded accuracy is a concept developed during the 5e playtest. It’s kind of a misleading name because what it really means is bounded target numbers. The idea was, in the new edition, target numbers would largely remain consistent throughout the level range. Some high-level monsters might have a bit higher AC than lower-level ones, but you would never get to the point (as you might have in 3e or 4e) where you can’t miss certain targets, and your AC would never get so much higher than your opponents’ attack bonus that they can’t hit you. In this way, low-level monsters could pose a challenge to high-level characters in large enough numbers, low-level characters could take on high-level monsters with clever tactics, and bonuses would always be actual bonuses instead of just keeping up with the math treadmill.

This... doesn’t really have much, if anything, to do with the assumption of +3 in the primary stat. That assumption comes from the fact that playtesting revealed the greatest number of players felt the most satisfied when they hit about 65% of the time. The way monster ACs scale with CR and the way prof bonus and ability bonus scales with level puts players in this sweet spot when they start with a 16 in their primary stat, boost their primary stat at ASI levels, and gets +x magic items at certain levels.

None of this means that a character must have any of these things to be effective. It just means that these are the assumptions the system math is built around to create the most satisfying play experience, at least as far as accuracy is concerned. If you start with a 14 in your primary stat instead of a 16, or if you get a magic weapon that puts you ahead of the curve, or you fight a monster that’s too high or too low a level for you, the game doesn’t break. Bounded accuracy actually helps insure this is the case.

When people say “the game assumes you start with a +3 in their primary,” they don’t mean your character will be useless if they don’t meet that expectation. They just mean that you will hit slightly less often than the game “expects” to create that optimal experience.

 

[Lanefan]

This was, IMO, one of the worst design decisions in the entire edition. It's a concept that is foreign to most gamers nowadays,

And why is that? Oh, because of bad design decisions such as point buy or arrays...

Rolling stats works if you are playing the game as a survival challenge, of if you don't already have a character concept. Most people already have a character concept before they roll stats.

Which is fine as long as those players are flexible enough to abandon said concept if the dice don't co-operate. It can always be saved for the next character...

That, and if a player's that inflexible right from the start it's a red flag to me-as-DM that said player might be a headache later when (not if) something bad or unlucky happens to his-her character.

No, most people come to the game wanting to play a tough, strong dwarf (or nowadays, more like a wood elf monk or a tiefling warlock, but I digress), possibly with a name, and a backstory. But if you are rolling for stats (and/or hp), you are just as likely to be unpleasantly surprised by low rolls that interfere with your concept as you are with high rolls that empower it. And if your entire character concept is a tough dwarf, but you end up with a Con 14, and roll a lot of 1s and 2s for hit points, while the halfling rogue or elf cleric in the party ended up with a Con 16 and keeps rolling 7s and 8s for hit points, your entire character concept is shot.

Sure, this happens; and you-as-player always have options:
-- play it out normally and see what happens
-- play it out gonzo such that it'll either die hard or be a superstar, and either way will be entertaining and memorable (this is my preference)
-- re-concept on the fly
-- retire the character after one adventure and roll up something new

And if you make exceptions to let people reroll if the rolls aren't good enough for their concept,

Usually a bad idea if done just to suit a concept; though I've no problem with generic re-roll rules like 3e had.

you still have the issue of objective imbalance amongst PCs in an objectively balanceable area. Does anyone actually find that particular thing fun? I mean really?

If you never knew the actual stats of the other PCs and thus didn't know whether Joanne's Thomasine averaged a full point higher per stat than your Falstaffe, would this even matter?

Also, in real life some people are just plain better at stuff in general than others. I like it when that's reflected in the game world

That's straight up a no go for me. Even when I'm playing a game where we are rolling for stats, I make sure to homebrew a method where the stats are objectively equal for each character. (For instance, everyone randomly rolls stats, but then everyone can pick to use whichever rolled array they like--including everyone using the same one if desired.) If PCs having an objective imbalance in one of the few areas in D&D where objective balance is actually possible is something a DM wants to do, they need to recognize that is what they want to do and make it completely transparent to their players to see if they are on-board.

This assumes far more concern about 'objective balance' than I want to be bothered with.

It's a game of luck - kinda like life, in that way - so pull 'em out and roll 'em!

 

[Lanefan]

They break my ability to immerse. I need to have actually flawed characters, I don't enjoy playing a character that is too superhuman.

Oh, I don't know - playing a superhuman-among-mortals now and then can be fun too. As long as the next character I play is significantly different from the last one, I'm good.

Stats it the last few editions have become too high for my tastes. At least with point buy I can get some control, but even point buy is too high and not low enough. I'm sorry, but a 12 anything shouldn't be considered "low", it isn't actually low. It is good. Or at least should be good. Probably I have too old school sensibilities in this regard, but those +1/+2 are in addition to the +1's you get from race and half feats. If you are rolling on top of it, characters very easily turn into superheroes and demi gods.

I really prefer playing characters that are closer to me in the scale of things.

We roll and always will; and a common joke around here is "Ha! I rolled a 7. Now it's playable!" We do allow rearranging of rolls.

The best - or certainly one of the best - character I've ever played was a Wizard (Illusionist) in 3e whose starting stats were barely above the re-roll floor.

A 12 is good among the average population (whose average is 10.5) but when compared to other adventurers it's average (the average on 4d6k3 is something like 12.3).

Also, even if your starting stats are pedestrian, in 5e by the time you get to high level and have packed on all the ASIs the game gives you your stats are still going to be crazy high.

 

[Lanefan]

Probably, but I'm only speaking for myself here. And yes super characters do exist, but it strains my suspension of disbelief that all characters happen to be statistical outliers.

Absolutely.

For me it's simply when all characters are special, be it via their stats or the rules they use or whatever: bang goes belief.

It also makes for a worse experience to me, because it starts to signal that this fantasy world that would be escapist can only be populated by born winners.

Or makes the assumption that players only like to play born winners, which might be even worse...

And that character with straight 18s, I wonder how he/she manages to be flawed when it is in the 1% most wise, likeable and smart. I know probably not perfect and not being the best at everything. But being above average at something is not a flaw. Not being perfect is not a flaw. Being actually bad at something is a flaw. Or at the very least a meaningful flaw, that has actual effects. I'm sorry, but to me it feels like cheating roleplaying a flaw that isn't actually there.

My experience tells me the high-stat characters die just as well and just as fast as the low-stat ones...'specially if I play 'em...

 

[EzekielRaiden]

When I refer to 12 being considered low I mean: "Would you ever play a character with a 12 in the class primary attribute?"

Depends on the system, but probably not. I find characters who have little to no bonuses terribly boring, because they usually fail at least as often as they succeed, and that gets really grating. I deal with enough failures in my everyday life. Doesn't mean I want to have an unmitigated stream of successes when I game, but it does mean I'd rather the ratio be better than IRL.

Granted, it is a character flaw. However, this is one of the kind of characters I can't feel for.

That's...a pretty broad swathe of characters though. Like, that's kind of definitional for a huge chunk of what TVTropes calls "Lancers": highly skilled and arrogant, needing to learn that being a team player is important.

With high charisma? With high wisdom?

Sure. Charisma means you're compelling to other people, not that you're courageous yourself. Being courageous may come with being compelling, but I've known a real person IRL who was quite cowardly...and also somehow managed to get most people to go along with what they wanted. Wisdom means a lot of really unrelated things (transcendental understanding, physical observation skills, ability to resist certain kinds of mental control, survival skills), so having high Wisdom and having poor impulse control can totally go hand-in-hand. I'd even say that Sherlock Holmes is a great example there, where he has AMAZING observational skills (clearly both Perception and Investigation) but really terrible self-control (he is portrayed as at least mildly addicted to cocaine because he gets bored between cases, after all).

Yes, nobody is exactly average, but most people are normal (as in "exist within two standard deviations of average") A character with a single 16? They are already over the 97% percentile. Having a single 18 already puts you close to 99.5%

Where are you getting this distribution information from? I don't know of any modern RPG which defines things so precisely. Certainly in old-school games this may have been true, but it need not be true of any particular game now.

And, as stated, "adventurers" aren't sampled from all people. They're sampled from a highly divergent group that differs from the normal distribution (hah, I'm punny) in several ways. Why should we expect career adventurers to have a distribution of characteristics that resembles the distribution of all people? That would be like presuming that all people who make a reasonable living as performers in the entertainment industry should have characteristic distributions that resemble all people from their nation of origin. (As one simple example, left-handed individuals are over-represented in interactive sports like tennis and baseball, but have about the same representation as the overall population for non-interactive sports like swimming or pole-vaulting.)

Is playing a bully your power fantasy? Because certainly isn't mine.

God no (and a little worried that you thought it was?) I was just giving it as an example of an unlikable but charismatic person. There are other more practical examples I could give, but those skirt the line of bringing controversial politics into an unrelated discussion, and I'd rather not do that. As a different example: Niccolo Machiavelli's titular ruler from The Prince. Note, here, that "feared" means "respected," as in, people know if they cross you, bad things will happen to them. "Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. [...] Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated...." That is, a monarch can get others to behave as desired by at least two means, being "loved" (what I would call likeability: people do things for you because they like you and want you to be pleased) or being "feared" (what I would call "impressiveness": people doing things for you because they know there are negative consequences if you are displeased with their behavior). Machiavelli advocates that, if you have to choose between them, you should choose the latter--because it's under your control, not someone else's--but emphatically advises against becoming hated, a condition where people will willingly endure problems in order to defy you. A king that is feared, but is not loved nor hated, is (I would argue) charismatic without being likeable. Or an attorney who specializes in prosecution, who rigorously pursues a guilty verdict, but holds no ill will toward anyone who is acquitted when she's at bat: probably not all that likeable (lawyers in general aren't all that well-liked), but it's entirely possible to be strongly charismatic and persuasive in a courtroom even if no one likes you at all.

Again, none of these are power fantasies for me. It's just demonstrations of plausible IRL individuals who are not "likeable" but are charismatic.

Perhaps I didn't use the right words. I keep using flaw instinctively, maybe "weakness" is a more apt word. Anyway, I come from the other side, failing at hard thing sometimes is not what I'd call a flaw or a weakness. Struggling to do something easy is a flaw/weakness.

Alright. Let's, again, take this hypothetical all-18s character. They attempt a task which they don't have proficiency (which...should still be most things). An Easy check is DC 10, they have +4 to the roll. That means 25% of the time (a roll of 5 or lower), they will fail to do that Easy thing. That's...hardly a negligible chance of failure. I dunno what things you would consider "easy" (as opposed to "very easy"), but if you had a one-in-four chance of genuinely failing to do something, would you be all that likely to presume you can just do it no sweat?

And very few actual characters have all 18s, certainly none generated by point-buy methods in 5e. Most such characters have at least one 8, meaning they would fail at so-called "Easy" tasks (that they aren't proficient in) 50% of the time, and fail at even "Very Easy" (DC 5) tasks 25% of the time. Since you aren't proficient with most skills (most chars only have 4, max amount at 1st level is 9 AFAICT), a non-negligible portion of rolls may apply there--and there are further cases where only the raw ability check will be asked for. This really shouldn't be uncommon, especially if you've discussed your character concept with your DM.

Perhaps I won't refrain from trying? Do you think I go out of the way to get negatives just to avoid them mattering? "Just roleplay it" doesn't work for me when the results of gameplay contradict what you are roleplaying. "I'm playing a bumbler that falls from stairs, walks into walls, and can trip on perfectly even floor", yet my character is untouchable in combat, does amazing stunts during exploration and consistently makes dex saves. I cannot handle that level of cognitive dissonance.

How do you mean "contradict what you are roleplaying"? Again, it is entirely possible to fail (25% chance) at "easy" things even for someone who has all 18s, and even for someone who (somehow) has a 4 in a given ability score, a Medium task (DC 15) is still potentially achievable, about 15% chance even without proficiency. So...even if you had scores wildly at variance with what 5e provides, you would still have a non-negligible (>5%) chance to succeed at things your character is supposed to fail horribly at all the time.

I guess I don't get how what you're expecting ever actually happens. Unless you willingly throw away your chances (which means ability scores don't matter because you're choosing to roleplay around/despite them), you're going to occasionally succeed on things your character is "terrible" at, and going to occasionally fail at things your character is "amazing" at.

It is not an 8 I'm looking for, I'm looking for multiple 8's. And well, they being 8's is the compromise. I'd rather they were more like 5's and 4's.

I do not like resorting to this kind of argument, because it smacks of gatekeeping and the like:
I think your interests and the design of D&D are just generally not copacetic. I think you would be substantially better-served by games that completely eliminate ability scores entirely (and thus cannot have the problem of "I'm supposed to be a fumbling idiot, yet I can do <thing X> 40% of the time??") and encode things by a different metric entirely. Fate, for example, comes to mind--it sounds like its Compels would be very well-suited to the kind of play you seek, where a weakness/fault/flaw/etc. really matters and is easily "used against you" on the regular. The whole "fate points" thing might be a turnoff, I admit, but I'm not super well-versed on systems like this and thus cannot think of alternatives that, I'm sure, exist.

Do you think there's only one Dex roll every season? Dex is about the most important scores in game. It affects everything, and well, I'm talking about a long term deal, and in the long term there is a difference, a struggle. Even in the short term, just the existence of rolls you cannot hope to make makes a difference. Like the paladin I once made that was built to be a healer. I gave her an 8 in Strength, and she suffered for it, she was slow in armor for starters. I didn't need to make up she being weaker, I actually played her as wanting to prove she was strong, but everybody could see that it was in fact the opposite. She died because she couldn't make a critical Athletics check. I couldn't have gotten that experience should she had the 20+ level appropriate strength that 4e practically demands of paladins.

Well...uh...actually, that's...a thing you easily could have been in 4e. Charisma was a perfectly valid (and, initially, better) main stat than Strength, and a healing-focused Paladin wants high Wisdom (and, ideally, high Constitution as well), because Wisdom sets your daily number of Lay on Hands uses. (Incidentally, this is actually an area where 4e's mechanics DO back up the story you wanted: in 4e, Lay on Hands sacrifices your own resources in order to heal others. You literally sacrifice your own vitality in order to restore other people.) There was even a Paragon Path, from the Player's Handbook to boot, called Hospitaler, which specifically made the Paladin a really good healer, pretty much every bit as good as a Cleric in fact.

A 4e Paladin that dumps Strength (8) and has no training in Athletics (normal, since Paladins didn't have that as a class skill for whatever reason) would seriously struggle with at-level Athletics checks even early on--in fact, just climbing a ladder (DC 5) has a 25% chance of failure! I dunno about you, but I'd call that a pretty good demonstration of physical weakness, if one in four attempts to climb a ladder causes you to fall on your rump. Forget trying to do something like "climb a rock wall" (DC 15)!

And why is that? Oh, because of bad design decisions such as point buy or arrays...

Calling something bad design doesn't actualy make it bad design, you know. You kinda have to demonstrate why. Otherwise you sound a lot like the guy who says cupcakes are bad desserts because they're small and not big like regular cakes.

Which is fine as long as those players are flexible enough to abandon said concept if the dice don't co-operate. It can always be saved for the next character...

No, it can't. Would you like to know how many groups I've been in that have played more than a single campaign together before breaking?

One. Ever. And I've been gaming since 2005. It really can't "always be saved for the next character," because that presumes there is a "next character." If the (ability score) dice don't cooperate with the story I'm actually interested in playing, I've got a pretty good reason not to listen to them: I may only get one shot. I'm not interested in GUARANTEEING that a story plays out exactly the way I want (if I were, I'd just write it, I am more than capable of doing so), but I'm also not interested in a game that guarantees the story CAN'T play out even remotely LIKE what I would like to see.

That, and if a player's that inflexible right from the start it's a red flag to me-as-DM that said player might be a headache later when (not if) something bad or unlucky happens to his-her character.

Why? Why should "you literally won't get to play anything like what actually excites you" be a red flag for the player's response to the journey not being guaranteed? I'm not asking for perfect success forever. (Anyone who presumes a desire for perfection from their opponents in a debate has ceded a point to those opponents.) I'm asking for having the opportunity to see a story with a particular beginning. I want that story to diverge from my expectations. I want that beginning to be only the vaguest hint of the places I'll go and the things I'll see. And I am far from alone in this desire. That's what most fans of point-buy want: the opportunity to begin with something they can actually enjoy watching evolve, as opposed to beginning with something that bores them or stymies them at every turn.

Sure, this happens; and you-as-player always have options:
-- play it out normally and see what happens
-- play it out gonzo such that it'll either die hard or be a superstar, and either way will be entertaining and memorable (this is my preference)
-- re-concept on the fly
-- retire the character after one adventure and roll up something new

All of which presume I get another chance, or can "re-concept on the fly" (I'm really really bad at that--appealing ideas stick to my brain). What if I don't get another chance? I've had numerous gaming groups that didn't stick together for one reason or another (usually Life Issues intervening so that there isn't enough game time anymore). What if my character dying means I'm probably now on another six-month-plus search for a new gaming group?

Usually a bad idea if done just to suit a concept; though I've no problem with generic re-roll rules like 3e had.

Though...you do realize that such rules make it so that non-special people are specifically excluded, right? Like, that's literally what the rules are designed to reduce: characters who have no particular talents (no score above 14) and who aren't overall slightly better than average (low total modifier sum).

If you never knew the actual stats of the other PCs and thus didn't know whether Joanne's Thomasine averaged a full point higher per stat than your Falstaffe, would this even matter?

Yes, because the truth always matters, even if it is concealed from me. But that's a can of worms we maybe shouldn't open. Suffice it to say that yes, it does matter to me, and this mattering is driven by deeply-held principles, not simply arbitrary whim.

Also, in real life some people are just plain better at stuff in general than others. I like it when that's reflected in the game world

Sure. I wouldn't want it any other way. I don't see how this is relevant? These exact terms describe the vast majority of D&D parties regardless of edition--and yes, including 4e.

This assumes far more concern about 'objective balance' than I want to be bothered with.

It's a game of luck - kinda like life, in that way - so pull 'em out and roll 'em!

As referenced above: I'd really like an entertainment experience that isn't isomorphic to reality, particularly on the subject of success and the role luck plays in getting to do anything you actually like doing.

For me it's simply when all characters are special, be it via their stats or the rules they use or whatever: bang goes belief.

How do you square this with the pretty much explicit notion that in order to be a PC at all--having class levels and such--you do have to be special? The 5e Fighter practically shouts it: "Not every member of the city watch, the village militia, or the queen's army is a fighter. Most of these troops are relatively untrained soldiers with only the most basic combat knowledge. Veteran soldiers, military officers, trained bodyguards, dedicated knights, and similar figures are fighters." That is straight-up saying that ordinary folk AREN'T Fighter material, that you HAVE to be special, at least a little bit, in order to qualify.

Perhaps, then, the problem is that you are forcing a dichotomy where there is actually a spectrum. It's not "completely and thoroughly not at all even slightly special" vs "THE MOST DELICATE AND UNIQUE AND SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE EVER CONCEIVED." You can have someone who is a little stand-out, slightly above the norm--and, much of the time, it is the combination of unusual circumstances and being (at least) slightly abnormal that leads to greatness.

Or makes the assumption that players only like to play born winners, which might be even worse...

My experience tells me the high-stat characters die just as well and just as fast as the low-stat ones...'specially if I play 'em...

I really don't get where this "born winners" thing came from. As demonstrated above, even someone with an 18 in every stat fails "easy" things relatively often if they aren't proficient, and non-negligibly even if they are proficient, at first level.

Like...the difference between a 4 and an 18 is -3 vs +4, a total of 7. That's 35 percentage points on the die. If someone with an 18 in a stat has a 95% chance to succeed, someone with a 4 in that stat still has a 60% chance. If someone with a 4 in a stat just barely can't succeed, then someone with an 18 in that stat still fails almost two-thirds of the time (65%). How does this make the all-18s person a "born winner" when they still, relatively often, lose? How does this make the all-4s person a born loser (if you'll allow the term) when they still, a non-negligible portion of the time, win?

People are throwing these terms around as though having stats below 8 guarantees failure. It doesn't. Or that having stats above 17 guarantee success. It doesn't. If you want to roleplay being a consistent failure or consistent success, you have to either willingly "throw" your opportunities or have the DM actively working to support you. There has never been an edition of D&D where this wasn't the case--even less so for the earliest editions, where only comparatively extreme stats had any merit at all.

 

[Don Durito]

You know, if you really wanted it, I'm betting a DM would allow you to put a lower stat in than the one you rolled. I probably would. But you're not going to get transactionally compensated for it with points to spend to make another stat higher. That's one of the reasons I have my players roll their stats, so that each individually generated value is independent of the others.

Yeah. That would be my ruling. Some of the most overpowered characters I've seen have come from people who are really good at role-playing a character with a very low score (Int or Cha are trivially easy). I got tired of the most effective Fighters always being the stupidest or the most obnoxious.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah. That would be my ruling. Some of the most overpower characters I've seen have come from people who are really good at role-playing a character with a very low score (Int or Cha are trivially easy). I got tired of the most effective Fighters always being the stupidest or the most obnoxious.

I've seen something along these lines as well, just in Dungeon World. A fellow player figured out that Discern Realities (DW's "Perception" equivalent) is really hard to give good negative consequences for.* (If you lie when they roll poorly, people will just know that whatever they hear is false; if you do nothing, that's a consequence-free error; and it's hard to justify doing damage or most of the other hard DM moves in general.) Since he was already playing a low-Wis character, he milked this for all it was worth. Was earning XP left and right and catapulted to max level while everyone else was about three levels behind. He actually ended up growing bored with it and building a new character, rather than continue to have the "flaw"/"weakness" he normally had, because it was, truthfully, more interesting to be good at things than to suck.

It wasn't a bad game and he wasn't a bad player by any means, so don't take the above as indicating abusive behavior. But he did, in fact, exploit playing a weakness--one backed up by the game statistics--in order to accomplish more, rather than less. And he did it without any special request for worse stats or special compensation for low stats or whatever. Just further evidence that even "weakness" is often better handled by the choices you make and the thinking you employ while acting as your character, than by relying on statistics that are often incompatible with meaningful "inability" or "losing" etc.

*I learned from this lesson and figured out a good consequence before I started running my own DW game: reveal an unwelcome truth is the DM move in question. That is, when the player gets a Miss on a Discern Realities roll (6 or less after mods), I have them still ask one question from the list...and they get an answer they won't like, but that is a completely true answer. No lies, still a consequence linked to the action, and still a true setback rather than a slap on the wrist.

 

[jasper]

I have seen a number of people claim that the game ‘assumes’ a certain score in a certain stat.

the default assumption is that scores are rolled.

just curious. I assume people put a good score in main/attack stat, but where has that been explicitly stated?

additionally, I have seen assertions about the math of the game likewise assuming certain scores in certain places.

any specifics would be great. Common sense says bonuses are good but where is that written? Just curious as the game seems to be less lethal than some past editions...

PHB
You generate your character’s six ability scores randomly. Roll four 6-sided dice and record the total of the highest three dice on a piece of scratch paper. Do this five more times, so that you have six numbers. If you want to save time or don’t like the idea of randomly determining ability scores, you can use the following scores instead: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.

Now take your six numbers and write each number beside one of your character’s six abilities to assign scores to Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Afterward, make any changes to your ability scores as a result of your race choice.

After assigning your ability scores, determine your ability modifiers using the Ability Scores and Modifiers table. To determine an ability modifier without consulting the table, subtract 10 from the ability score and then divide the result by 2 (round down). Write the modifier next to each of your scores.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, nobody is exactly average, but most people are normal (as in "exist within two standard deviations of average") A character with a single 16? They are already over the 97% percentile. Having a single 18 already puts you close to 99.5%

For a PC to get a single 16 or higher with a single roll with straight 3d6, there is a 4.21% chance. When you factor in 6 rolls, the chances are significantly higher. So a PC with a single 16 is not in the 97% percentile, he is significantly lower than that. He'd be in that percentile for that individual stat, but not an over all character.