'Balancing' rolled characters

[Kilmore]

ADDENDUM

Most characters don't really need high stats across the board as long as they have something good in what they're good at. STR for fighters, DEX for rogues, INT for wizards, so on. Even if a character has 16's in four of his stats and 19's in the other two, the player is going to focus on his 19's. Not that the 16's won't come into play, but they will not be character defining stats.

 

[Forsythe]

Hm.....some player got lucky and rolled a set of high ability scores...and some player got "unlucky" and rolled a lower set.

1. Begin play...if everyone likes the characters they created regardless of stats..no prob
2. If the player with the high or low set of scores does not like their character they can (and probably will) self destruct the character (manual trap detection and removal) and not allow them to be raised (players choice). Then they get to roll again. With 3.5rules for xp, they either catch up quickly or start at the same point (your choice)....so now..no prob.

Enjoy

Forsythe

 

[Saeviomagy]

My suggestion would be to get off low levels ASAP. With two notable exceptions (con and int), the benefits of good stats don't tend to scale with level, and rapidly become less important.

As for everyone saying "balance sucks". Do you have a good reason, or is it just that you don't like the feel/think it's unrealistic in a world of magic/like having the best stats and know you can suicide if you don't?

And quit bringing up fiction - fiction!=RPG. Or do you honestly think that DMing Lord of The Rings ( without rigging everything horribly ) would be remotely possible.

 

[Wombat]

My suggestion would be to get off low levels ASAP. With two notable exceptions (con and int), the benefits of good stats don't tend to scale with level, and rapidly become less important.

As for everyone saying "balance sucks". Do you have a good reason, or is it just that you don't like the feel/think it's unrealistic in a world of magic/like having the best stats and know you can suicide if you don't?

And quit bringing up fiction - fiction!=RPG. Or do you honestly think that DMing Lord of The Rings ( without rigging everything horribly ) would be remotely possible.

Okay, I'm a bit confused by what you are saying here, especially in the latter part, so I'll just go section by section. For all I know I am agreeing with your arguments -- please understand I mean no offense.

As for "get off low levels ASAP", my group & I prefer low level games -- anything above 10th level starts feeling too much like a comic book for our tastes, but that, of course, is a matter of opinion, so not very much further I can go there. Others like higher power games. This is equally well and good.

The next two paragraphs is where things get really muddy.

I have been running rpgs since 1976. When I started there was only the concept of random rolling, from stat to stat, in the order they were presented -- like it or lump it. Characters were hardly at all in balance and often people ended up having to play character types they did not like just because of how the dice came up.

Then came Champions, GURPS, White Wolf and a host of other companies that said "all characters can be built on an exactly equal footing." The problem is that this is a myth. While any given stat may cost the same as any other given stat, if a particular session or campaign emphasizes, say, combat over socialization, then combat stats are inherently worth more, no matter what the balancing charts may say.

The same could be said for skills. Is 1 point in Knowledge (Arcana) woth the same as 1 point in Tumble? It could be, depending on the situation the players find themselves in, but just as likely it could not.

"Balance" sounds nice, but it is very rarely achieved and, ultimately, appears to be a false goal, something unobtainable in gaming.

Now you also bring up the notion that games are fiction and not reality. This is true. You also mention (in a way that I do not fully understand) LotR. I think we can all agree that the nine members of the Fellowship are not "balanced" -- it appears the Gandalf is built on a much high point-base than, say, Merry & Pippin (perhaps even the two of them combined). Yet there are times when these two hobbits shine in their own right, even though they are not as clever, as strong, or as well trained.

A good player can deal with random stats and not worry about "balance"; I have seen this in Ars Magica many times where there is no attempt to balance between Magus and Grog. Currently my feelings are these -- some balance is a good thing (start all the characters in a D20 game at the same level with equal chances at goods and treasure), but also allow for some random factors (roll 4d6 [keeping 3] six times, place as desired -- that way you get to play the type of character you desire, if not the optimal.

For that matter, if I could work in a Fuzion style lifepath on top of matters, I think everything would be golden!

 

[RedShirtNo5]

While I have tended to like point-buy in the past, for the inherent balance of the method, I wanted to try rolling, to get the unpredictability, occasional odd score, and inspiration for a character very different from what you might have created given 'free choice' that it gives.

I'll suggest an alternative method that gives fairly random stats while avoiding large disparities between PCs.

1. Take a deck of cards. Remove 24 cards - four Aces, four 2s, four 3s, four 4s, four 5s and four 6s.

2. Shuffle the 24 cards and deal into six piles of four cards each.

3. For each pile, turn over the cards, discard lowest card, and total the remaining three cards. Assign to stats "in order" if you are feeling 'old school'. Otherwise, let the player assign. IIRC, this gives an average stat just over 12.

A similar alternative with even less disparity between PCs is the following: remove 18 cards - two Aces, two 2s, three 3s, three 4s, four 5s and four 6s; deal into six piles of 3. This gives an average of 11.83.

-RedShirt

 

[Urbannen]

I always think it's strange when I hear that groups roll for stats, but that they do things like "if you don't like your stats, roll up a new set" or "I always add a few points to the person with the lowest stats" or "the person with the lowest stats gets more ability increases.'

Why not just use point buy? People want to roll stats, but they also want there to be a modicum of balance between players. In other words, "I want all my players to roll for stats because it's fun and creates "realism" but really I want all the characters to be within 5 points of each other and I want all characters to have a point buy total of at least 36."

What's important is that all players use the same method and accept it beforehand. I have joined groups that "rolled for stats normally at home," which meant that when I rolled once for my stats at home, the other players had all rolled multiple times for their stats at home. One of them even had marked on his character generator program sheet that he had rolled 26 times for his incredibly high stats. Not surprisingly, my character had the lowest stats with a point-buy total of 35, which at the time I thought was lucky.

Point buy is good. It's fair. Inter-player competition is a real factor to consider. But if you insist on rolling, have players do an honest roll in front of everyone and stick with the results. What's the point in gambling if there is no risk? (Or is that the point?)

 

[Dimwhit]

I always think it's strange when I hear that groups roll for stats, but that they do things like "if you don't like your stats, roll up a new set" or "I always add a few points to the person with the lowest stats" or "the person with the lowest stats gets more ability increases.'

Why not just use point buy? People want to roll stats, but they also want there to be a modicum of balance between players. In other words, "I want all my players to roll for stats because it's fun and creates "realism" but really I want all the characters to be within 5 points of each other and I want all characters to have a point buy total of at least 36."

What's important is that all players use the same method and accept it beforehand. I have joined groups that "rolled for stats normally at home," which meant that when I rolled once for my stats at home, the other players had all rolled multiple times for their stats at home. One of them even had marked on his character generator program sheet that he had rolled 26 times for his incredibly high stats. Not surprisingly, my character had the lowest stats with a point-buy total of 35, which at the time I thought was lucky.

Point buy is good. It's fair. Inter-player competition is a real factor to consider. But if you insist on rolling, have players do an honest roll in front of everyone and stick with the results. What's the point in gambling if there is no risk? (Or is that the point?)

Urbannen, I agree with what you say. Except that point buy is good. But you're right, there's no point in rolling if people are going to go home and roll until they like the results. Have everyone do it in front of everyone else. It's fair, it's random, and it's fun.

 

[smetzger]

Point buy is good. It's fair.

Yup, and its boring. The idea is to come up with a simple method that is fun and fair.

 

[diaglo]

3d6 six times in order.

if the people you play with can't have fun. maybe something else is in order.

personally we never had a problem.

 

[Plane Sailing]

we used to use random rolling for all characters before 3e, but suddenly stats have a much, much more significant factor on all the actions of all the characters. At the start of the campaign the person who had rolled (in front of me) two 18's was better by so much than the other fighter that it wasn't even funny. The thing is, as levels increase this disparity doesn't go away.

We shifted over to a 1-1 point buy (75 pts) and this has been working well for us so far.

The first ever point buy RPG I came across was Bushido, and it took us a little while to get used to the idea then(!) I've not seen White Wolf.

nb... don't forget that the goal of "balance" isn't equal power, it is equal fun to play. The notion that any of the character classes should have equally fun options throughout the campaign was new to 3e and much needed too. By all means rant against the way some people misuse the idea of "balanced" at the moment, but the fundamental principle remains a great one.

Cheers