Die Rolls or Point-Buy

[Crothian]

In my new campaign I allowed the players to pick their own stats and then explain to me based on the character concept why they picked the stats they did.

It worked out really well.

 

[Grazzt]

4d6, drop lowest. Been using that method since the early 1e days.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I answered Point Buy (custom) because I use a mod total system for my D&D games. I think it would be absurd to put all this work into "balancing" classes, abilities, encounters, etc. and then have one player's stats be better than all the others. Particularly given that my players never used to deal well with those sorts of inequality.

However, in different style games (CoC, focused more on story and character and not requiring mechanical balance) I have stats rolled (and rerolled if we don't like 'em).

 

[Cadfan]

Point buy forever. I hate rolling for stats because the incredible impact that a very high or very low roll can last for an entire campaign. I particularly hate watching someone roll just a point or so over the mark where they could have, by the rules, discarded their roll. Because they're going to want to discard their roll, not be able to, and resent it. And if I let them discard their roll, rolling for stats becomes even more of a farce than it normally is.

 

[Terwox]

Ew. Back in '02 looks like I voted die rolls.

Wouldn't dream of it now. Had too many people get exceptional rolls... and in 3e that meant they were 1-3 levels higher than everybody else. Bah to that.

Probably not as bad in 4E though really.

 

[pogminky]

I'm tempted to just say pick whatever stats are appropriate for your PCs backstory.

 

[EtanMoonstar]

I've been very happy with a card-based method that I first saw on these boards some time back. Take 2 cards of each number from 4-9, shuffle, and deal out two cards per ability score. Allow players to assign the results to their stats as they see fit.

 

[mudbunny]

A wierd combination of point buy and dice rolling that I found on Usenet by a poster called Justisaur

1. Roll 3D6, reroll if total is less than 9 - Ability score 1
2. 27 - result of 1 - Ability Score 2
3. Roll 3D6, reroll if total is less than 7 - Ability Score 3
4. 25 - result of 3 - Ability score 4
5. Roll 3D6, reroll if total is les than 5 - Ability score 5
6. 23 - result of 5 - Ability score 6

Then they get 4 point-buy points to play with, not raising any score above 18 (before racial bonuses).

 

[Mamacat]

I hate the point buy system. What we do is have the players roll six sets of stats, then place them where it makes sense for their characters. Sort of the best of both worlds.

 

[Afrodyte]

I'm tempted to just say pick whatever stats are appropriate for your PCs backstory.

Same here, but in the interest of fairness and also because some people are idiots, I voted point-buy.