'Balancing' rolled characters

[Conaill]

Ah, this topic again!

I'll just post the character generation methods that I usually recommend when these threads crop up. All three are designed to give you some randomness, but be much better balanced than purely rolled stats...

1) The deck of cards method mentioned by RedShirtNo5 earlier: take a deck, remove everything except for the 1-6 cards, deal 6 stacks of 4 cards and drop the lowest card from each stack. Gives almost *exactly* the same distribution of individual stats as 4d6-drop-lowest, but the set of stats will be much better balanced.

2) Roll stats as desired, and calculate their point-buy value. If the value is above some desired point-buy, the player can decrease stats until it matches the desired value. If the value is below the desired value, increase some stats until it matches. Perfectly point-buy balanced and still allows some degree of fine-tuning by the player, but will lead to much more "natural" sets of stats, and can't be totally min-maxed.

3) Only roll 3 stats using 4d6. The remaing 3 stats are equal to 25 minus the first three (max 18). The sum of all stats will be perfectly balanced (unless you happen to roll a 6 or lower). For every high stat you get a low one, for every even stat you also get an odd one.


Pet Peeve: Do NOT use point-buy using a randomized value (e.g. 25+d6 points). That will give you exactly the worst of both worlds: the inequality of rolled stats, with the min-maxing of point-buy. Rather, you want a method which combines the fairness of point-buy with the randomness and excitement of rolled stats, as the methods above do...

 

[Conaill]

Some more random suggestions...

- Allowing a set to be rerolled once (or even a best of two sets) actually has a surprisingly small effect on the average point-buy value of the resulting set. Much less than, say, rerolling 1's, or rolling 5d6-drop-2. If you do insist on rolling for stats, it's not a bad idea to allow one set reroll. Plus it'll keep your players happy!

- An extra 10 point-buy points is worth about a +1 LA. You could calculate the point-buy value of the rolled stats, and give those with lower stats an extra 100 XP per point to start the game with. If they get *really* sucky stats, it might be enough to let them start with a +1 ECL race, or to let them start with a lvl 2 character. They could also use the XP to make some magic items before the campaign starts. Or it'll just let them level up slightly faster than the ones with better stats (less raw talent, but more experience).

 

[Saeviomagy]

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.

My point was that large differences in stats in D&D only really matter at low level. Once you get to high level, the differences to skills and abilities provided by stats tend to pale in comparison with class abilities and skill ranks.

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.

If your DM is halfway decent, then you can ALWAYS twist a situation to match your character. If he's the sort of person who says "the orcs don't listen to your well-reasoned explanation and attack!", then it's not so much a problem with you, the character, or the game system - he's just a bad DM.

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.

The tumble skill would be useless if your character kept out of the thick of combat. OTOH, if your character solved every problem with physical solutions, then Knowledge skills wouldn't be worth a lot. But most of the time it will be your choice as to which you are trying to use.

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

I agree that a precise degree of balance isn't possible, but it's clear (to me at least) that it's desireable, and that blowing it off without attempting to address the problems that a lack of it causes is a very good way to have players totally disinterested in a game.

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.

However all of those points are almost completely author-fiat. It's exactly the same in almost any fictional example of high-power characters alongside low-power characters. If you were playing in a game which had a Gandalf character and a Merry character, then almost every contribution merry could possibly make would be gm-scripted. Personally I'm one of those people who would much rather play my character than play the part my GM has selected for my character. As a GM, I run a game in the same way - I set up the players and the situation, and most of the action is dictated by the players.

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.

Which is why, of course, the game suggests that you swap around who gets to play Magus and who gets to play Grog. That'd be why it's expected that each player has a Magus, a group of Heroes and a veritable army of Grogs.
Grogs are all very good for story-based stuff (where the rules basically don't matter and balance is moot), but I dare say most players will do their best to avoid success-critical situations with them, leaving them to more powerful heroes and magi.

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.

Certainly in 3ED&D the impact of statistics are significantly less than in prior editions, and therefore the impact of random rolling is lessened. However I think that a combination of any sort of power-player and random rolling is a very very bad one.

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

I thought you wanted to let people play the character they desired? Some of those lifepaths just blow entire character concepts to hell.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

If I were you I might allow him to reroll all or one of his stats since his point but is less than the default array value of 25 pts.

However I wouldn't recomend punishing the players who rolled well on their characters. In an old game I ran my players rolled a total abilty modifier of +15, the second rolled +10, the third rolled +9 and another +8 and the game ran smoothly.

 

[Urbannen]

Psion: I think point buy is fair because all players have the same options to start with. I understand that some classes aren't as good unless the character has several high stats, namely paladins, rangers, and monks. But just because you roll high stats doesn't mean that you are going to choose one of these options. Rolling low means that you can't choose one of these options.

And if you roll for dice, the DM has to say "I want to see your rolls." I know what goes on when an player rolls alone. "Well, that was just a test run." "Well, if I take 1 from this 14 and add 1 to that 17, that's still fair."

When I have entered groups that rolled without the DM looking, my honestly rolled stats have always been lower than the others'. In one group I played two campaigns with, both my characters had a negative stat modifier, and they were the only ones that did.

If there is no concrete way to determine stats, then there is no basis for comparison. "Your cleric/fighter only has a 9 Int? general looks of disdain from the group in which no character has lower than a 12"



Back on topic, if you want to both roll and reduce the spread of characters' abilities, then you have to do it mathematically. How about 3d4+6, rolled 6 times, arrange to taste? Stats range from 9 - 18, with the average stat being 13.5.

 

[National Acrobat]

As a DM, I prefer point buy (although this Matrix theory sounds very interesting) because with the Point Buy system it is very easy to present encounters that all characters can handle on the same terms. However, I also like the randomness, and I agree that there are just people who are better than others, and that balancing every encounter sometimes just isn't very realistic. What I do is ask the players before a campaign starts whether they want point buy or to roll. Rolling means 4d6, drop lowest, arrange as desired. They always pick rolling, and my players are old school, if it can be played, they will. They don't care about other things. So, to be fair, rolling is random as are other factors that occur where dice are used. One of my players has a thief in the group with

S 8
I 14
W 9
D 13
C 8
Ch 13

he's happy with it, the other players are happy with it and I haven't adjusted anything to deal with it. I think a lot of it just depends on what the players want and if they are interested in keeping their rolls, good luck. Just my 2 cents.

 

[jester47]

2d6 +6 also works, a range of 8 - 18 with 13 for the average. 8 is a playable low stat. Still like my PH method with the enhanced mulligan though.

A.

 

[Norfleet]

Well, one way of doing things is that you can roll all the stats at once, 3 or 4d6 for each stat, for every character in the group, all at once.

Then simply have the entire group divvy out the dice rolls, either on a per-die basis, 3 per stat, or on a per stat basis. Since until the dice have been divided amongst the player characters, they're communal property, you'd probably get some interesting deals going on right there over how to divide up the stat pool.

This method makes it so characters are still essentially sort of random, but the potentially lopsided generation is cut down as players wheel and deal for their choice of the stats.

It's also of note that stats possess entirely different values depending on your character class: Casters tend to have one all-important stat, without which the caster is more or less useless, whereas physical characters have a broader range of demands, but no single stat has to be really up there to be effective. Totally random, in-order generation can wind up producing a party which is lopsided in composition as roles go unfilled.

 

[Elric]

We don't need balance... as long as my character is the most powerful one

 

[Crothian]

I think people seem to worry about balance between characters.