D&D 5E Characters are not their statistics and abilities

[Ralif Redhammer]

Oy, I remember the kid that showed up wanting to play his character that he claimed to have rolled all 18s for.

As much as I love the classic dice rolling method, I only go with the Standard Array these days, because there’s always someone that has suspiciously high “rolled” stats.

And power gaming. I had players kill off their pcs if they didn't like their stats. And games who would "roll" 36 times or make up their "I honestly roll this" stats. It not a generational thing, it an individual thing.

 

[OniDaimyo]

Just use point buy and watch these cheating losers cry tears of blood.

 

[Lanliss]

Just use point buy and watch these cheating losers cry tears of blood.

Or just have them roll in front of you.

 

[WarpedAcorn]

Oy, I remember the kid that showed up wanting to play his character that he claimed to have rolled all 18s for.

As much as I love the classic dice rolling method, I only go with the Standard Array these days, because there’s always someone that has suspiciously high “rolled” stats.

In the current game I run I let people roll for stats (and doubled-down on the situation by letting them point swap). I doubt any of them cheated, but what ended up was everyone at the table had a 20 in their primary stat at level 1. This was a mistake. The next game I run will be Standard-Array, and if I want a "deadlier" campaign I will provide more points to the pool. I definitely consider the rolled stats my biggest misstep of my current game.

 

[jasper]

Or just have them roll in front of you.

with the trick die that has 2 6s or if they really slick two 5s.
What are you griping about Lanliss? I said you could look over my dice. No my fault you didn't catch it. (true story).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Or just have them roll in front of you.

There's also nothing wrong with asking a suspicious DM to roll your stats for you and just email you the resulting array in advance of game night.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Rather than multi-quote, I'll just make my comments here about a few things.

1. Powergaming. It is flat out wrong to say that the majority of players are powergamers. We even had a poll about this about six months ago or so, and a whopping 90% of those answering did not identify as a powergamer or optimizer. Only 10% did. I know ENWorld doesn't represent the gaming community as a whole, but that big of difference makes me believe that powergaming is not as popular as the handful of people who are powergamers like to think it is. This seems backed up by Mearls' own research WoTC did.

2. D&D hasn't always been about killing things and taking their stuff. 1e was around for a long time. And AD&D was about getting treasure. Killing things was not only not a requirement, but it was actively encourage to NOT kill things, but to simply overcome or avoid them, getting to the treasure. In fact, anyone with even just a brief familiarity of AD&D's rules knows that if you went combat only RAW, you're PCs were gonna die. A lot. And 2e didn't change this much either, didn't modify the rules that much, and placed emphasis on the setting material and campaign world. So if you say that 5e's approach now is throwing out the history books? Then you don't know anything about D&D's history.

 

[Pathkeeper24601]

For rolled stats I give each player and myself an index card. Everyone rolls one set of stat rolls of 4d6 keep best. I then take the index cards and throw out the best and the worst set. Players are free to use any of the remaining set of stats.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It is flat out wrong to say that the majority of players are powergamers. We even had a poll about this about six months ago or so, and a whopping 90% of those answering did not identify as a powergamer or optimizer. Only 10% did.

Yeah, that might speak to the proportion of respondents that powergame. Or it might speak to the proportion of powergamers who respond to such a poll - or choose to do so honestly....

I know ENWorld doesn't represent the gaming community as a whole, but that big of difference makes me believe that powergaming is not as popular as the handful of people who are powergamers like to think it is.

Powergaming, vs doing it to excess, vs self-identifying as such - very different things.

D&D hasn't always been about killing things and taking their stuff.

Sure. Sometimes it was just about killing things or, other times, just about taking their stuff. Mostly it was about both, though...

...that's a 'balanced' approach, right?

 

[Sacrosanct]

We can look at how the rules are structured, how they have been structured in various editions, and easily identify what type expected playstyle those rules support. If you focuses on fighting all (or even most) of the time in AD&D, both 1e and 2e, you would die without some sort of DM intervention. This is evidenced by the save or die mechanic, the fact that a single spear attack by a kobold can take out a 3rd level magic user in one hit, etc. Those rules clearly supported a playstyle that encouraged a cautious approach, one that rewarded avoiding the combat altogether and find another route to gain the treasure.