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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9379920" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Yeah, this change from 1E to 2E still baffles me to this day.  Gary tells us right up front in 1E that an AD&D character should have at least two scores of 15 or better.  The ability score charts then hammer this need home by putting the minimum score needed for a  small bonus (at least to the stuff we normally care about, like AC or damage) at a 15 or a 16 (exception: Wisdom 13 gives a Cleric a bonus spell).  And then, while cleaning up the tables a bit, 2nd ed keeps those high requirements for any bonus while reverting to OD&D-style 3d6 down the line!Unsurprisingly, I never saw ANYONE use 3d6 down the line in AD&D.  The method the groups I played in settled on was three sets of 4d6 drop the lowest, and arrange to taste.Yes, B/X and BECMI hit a sweet spot (slightly improving on OD&D) due to allowing bonuses starting at a 13 in a score, and allowing point-swapping to increase your Prime Requisite.  This means that, although you're still at the mercy of the dice as to what class your character will be best suited for, you can virtually always at least play the (human) class you want, and if you go with whatever the dice point you toward, you can reliably expect to have a 13 or better in your PR.Basic Fantasy works, but yeah, this is exactly what OSE Advanced does.  It does it beautifully, too.  Tight design, maintaining balance while incorporating thematic but simplified versions of classes like the Cavalier and Thief-Acrobat (Knight and Acrobat), allowing the separation of race and class, giving ascending AC with attack bonus as one of the core options...I have some of this same feeling.  I do like how rolling in order gives you more organic-feeling characters.  I like how the ability charts in B/X / BECMI / OSE allow you to get a useful bonus at a lower threshold, and how point-swapping makes it easier.OTOH I'm very sympathetic to folks wanting to be able to play the class they prefer.Thankfully, with minimal house rules like "generate the set in order but then you may swap any two scores" or "generate the set as normal, but you may "'flip' it by subtracting every score in order from 21", you can usually get the best of both worlds.We didn't allow fudging- all rolls had to be made in front of the group, but we adopted a generous rolling system (above) to ensure that we could basically always qualify for what we wanted. We might not always have percentile strength, but we'd reliably have bonuses in what we needed.I think there's a bit of a false dichotomy here.  I'm down with point buy too, but with the right rolling system and the right mechanics, you still get to play the character you want, but their scores are a little more organic and a little less predictable.  And for me that has some value, though I get that it doesn't for everyone.</blockquote>

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