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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 5978993" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>Bleah.</p><p></p><p>With these you're reducing the range - instead of 3-18 it effectively becomes 8-18. You're also reducing the realism...</p><p></p><p>We roll for stats, have done since time immemorial, and - somewhat amazingly - have used pretty much the same roll-up system all the way through; giving consistent data. A while back, just for kicks, I dug out a whole bunch of character sheets - 80 or so who had done very well and another 80 or so who hadn't lasted very long, as a control group - and ran the numbers to see whether having high or low stats at roll-up made a great difference to expected career length measured by number of adventures.</p><p></p><p>There was a difference. A small difference. Small enough that it could have been entirely accounted for by the natural tendency of some players to look at low-stat characters as throwaways and not play them as seriously. (needless to say I didn't have data for this!)</p><p></p><p>I've seen characters whose lowest rolled stat was 15 (!) die in their first adventure; I've seen characters with very average stats last an amazingly long time. Death is a random mistress, misfortune is a fickle master; and both can strike at the best and worst of characters at any time.</p><p></p><p>To sum up: I say roll 'em - it makes little to no difference in the long run anyway and it's much more fun at the time. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Lan-"for a more entertaining game, insist that all non-Clerics put their dump stat in Wisdom"-efan</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 5978993, member: 29398"] Bleah. With these you're reducing the range - instead of 3-18 it effectively becomes 8-18. You're also reducing the realism... We roll for stats, have done since time immemorial, and - somewhat amazingly - have used pretty much the same roll-up system all the way through; giving consistent data. A while back, just for kicks, I dug out a whole bunch of character sheets - 80 or so who had done very well and another 80 or so who hadn't lasted very long, as a control group - and ran the numbers to see whether having high or low stats at roll-up made a great difference to expected career length measured by number of adventures. There was a difference. A small difference. Small enough that it could have been entirely accounted for by the natural tendency of some players to look at low-stat characters as throwaways and not play them as seriously. (needless to say I didn't have data for this!) I've seen characters whose lowest rolled stat was 15 (!) die in their first adventure; I've seen characters with very average stats last an amazingly long time. Death is a random mistress, misfortune is a fickle master; and both can strike at the best and worst of characters at any time. To sum up: I say roll 'em - it makes little to no difference in the long run anyway and it's much more fun at the time. :) Lan-"for a more entertaining game, insist that all non-Clerics put their dump stat in Wisdom"-efan [/QUOTE]
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