Concerned About Ability Scores

[CleverNickName]

So we rolled up a few characters last night, using the 2nd Playtest Packet. And we are concerned about ability scores...specifically, how everybody gets to start with several scores well above 15.

First, you roll your scores (the 4d6 method, no less) or you use the array given. Then you choose a race, and add more ability score points...as many as +7 if you choose human. Then you choose a class, and add another ability score point. Results:

Everyone, unanimously, rolled up a human character.

The human wizard had a 20 in Intelligence, and his lowest score was 12.

The human cleric had a 21 in Wisdom, and his lowest score was 13.

The human fighter had a 21 in strength, and his lowest score was 9.

The human rogue had a 19 in Dexterity, and his lowest score was 15.

Remember, these are first level characters. First level. Twenty-one strength. That's three points higher than anything else in the game, including the Troll and the Ogre, and the fighter hasn't even seen a battle yet.

This is just the beginning, too. When they reach 4th level, they get to add two more ability score points. That means our 4th level fighter will have a Strength of 23. One level lower than the Ogre, but stronger by 5 points.

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I guess I'm concerned for a couple of reasons. The first (and less important) reason is that it makes me feel like a Santa Claus DM: "Lots of free points for everybody! Everybody gets to start with an 18! Merry Christmas!"

Second, and most importantly, it feels very unbalanced...first level characters are much, much stronger than the monsters they are fighting (even powerful monsters that are twice their size, like Trolls.)

But who knows? Maybe these monsters are just first-drafts, and the final version of the Troll will have a more appropriate 40-something in Strength. After all, if a 1st level human can get a 21 Strength, a 7th level Troll should be at least twice that. Right? Then if so, why did they bother inflating the numbers in the first place?

*sigh* I guess we will see in the playtest. Already though, my players were shocked at how much stronger, faster, smarter, etc. their first-level characters were compared to their 9th and 10th level Pathfinder characters. And not in a good way.

 

[Ahnehnois]

That does seem kind of concerning.

 

[Mallus]

1) Don't PC ability scores cap at 20 -- or did I make that up?

2) A 21 STR at first level doesn't shock me. It's comparable to a 1st level AD&D character with an 18/high percentile strength.

3) Neither do the other high stats. For comparison, take a look at the stats of the characters found in the classic AD&D modules/supplements (both NPCs and pregen PCs). The idea that old-school D&D --at least from AD&D onward-- is defined by characters with Everyman stats is... hmm... unsupported by the supplements I'm familiar with. While I'm sure it was true for some campaigns, the prevalence of low ability scores sure like revisionist history to me.

4) To my mind, these scores map to high-power AD&D, which is fine, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[DEFCON 1]

So on six 4d6 rolls each, two PCs rolled an 18, one a 17, and one a 16? I would suggest that perhaps you just bucked the odds there, rather than it be an expectation.

And on top of that... the lowest roll your rogue made on a 4d6 was a 14? So all his six rolls were between 14 and 18? That is really outside the bounds of normal rolling averages. Perhaps you just got extremely lucky this go round, but its not something most players will be falling under.

 

[KidSnide]

First, you roll your scores (the 4d6 method, no less) or you use the array given. Then you choose a race, and add more ability score points...as many as +7 if you choose human. Then you choose a class, and add another ability score point. Results:

Everyone, unanimously, rolled up a human character.

The human wizard had a 20 in Intelligence, and his lowest score was 12.

The human cleric had a 21 in Wisdom, and his lowest score was 13.

The human fighter had a 21 in strength, and his lowest score was 9.

The human rogue had a 19 in Dexterity, and his lowest score was 15

Two points:
* Stats are capped at 20.
* Those are pretty good rolls for 4d6, drop 1.

-KS

Edit: too slow...

 

[JamesonCourage]

Yep, looks like just incredibly good rolls. Isn't rolling an 18 on 4d6 about 1.6%? On 6 rolls per player with 4 players, you probably shouldn't see even a single 18, and you saw two of them. They rolled well. The rogue rolled amazingly well (and the wizard and cleric got pretty lucky outside of their 17/18 rolls).

Rolling well is sometimes part of rolling for ability scores. I like it; others hate it. If you don't like it, don't use it. It's by far one of the easiest things to swap out. However, what you listed here definitely won't be the average. As always, play what you like

 

[triqui]

When you roll 4d6 and drop lower, the chances are:

High One Two Three
18 9.34% 0.38% 0.01%
17 30.07% 4.03% 0.34%
16 56.76% 17.85% 3.26%
15 79.40% 42.16% 14.13%
14 92.80% 69.01% 36.29%
The average roll is rougly 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 9.

Humans get a very high bonus, but that's not the fault of 4d6 roll. It's a problem with humans being to powerful

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

There's a good discussion about the Human bonus elsewhere, but even without +1 to everything, your players were lucky.

Check out Die Roll Stats with 4d6D1 as the dice roll string. The chance of rolling 14 or higher six times is about 0.35^6 is about 0.2% so the Thief lucked out. Further the chance of getting at least one 18 in six rolls is about 8.9%, two 18s in 12 rolls is 1.4% so I guess your group lucked out there too.

 

[slobo777]

Graph of expected results 4d6 drop lowest for single die: 4d6 Probability Curve by Daniel R. Collins

I had some analysis of expected variations for 6-stat characters from my own code, but that's buried somewhere, could dig it out if you want?

In any case, I prefer fixed point-buy for character generation, and having my character design driven by my choices, with no influence from my luck. That's ever since it became standard in 3E - one of my dislikes playing 2E with my group is starting out with PC disparity due to good an bad rolls, or more usually having the DM sitting in judgement over how good your stats are, and "fixing" things.

A simple fix for that is a shared rolled array, with each player rolling one stat. You still get to make do with random inputs, but no-one is sat with an obvious "worst" or "best" character from the get-go.

 

[nightwalker450]

When you roll 4d6 and drop lower, the chances are:

High One Two Three
18 9.34% 0.38% 0.01%
17 30.07% 4.03% 0.34%
16 56.76% 17.85% 3.26%
15 79.40% 42.16% 14.13%
14 92.80% 69.01% 36.29%
The average roll is rougly 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 9.

Humans get a very high bonus, but that's not the fault of 4d6 roll. It's a problem with humans being to powerful

That looked like stats I put together months ago... Dunno if it was, but here's the full graph: http://skitzinc.wikispaces.com/file/view/4d6Chart.png