D&D General Having your players roll their stats

[Shiroiken]

I typically offer point buy or rolled, and the players universally choose to roll. For my playtest campaign I required point buy to keep things balanced.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Depends on the campaign. In 5e, for various campaigns, we've utilized The Matrix, Point Buy, modified Point Buy (change an 8 to a 6 for +1 to any other stat), and 4d6 drop lowest.

RE: rolling
I've had players (well, a player) get really upset about rolling two low-ish numbers and two average ones. I've had others slightly disappointed they didn't have at least one low stat. I've had players embrace a few low stats as, to them, it makes for a more interesting character. In 7+ years of DMing and playing 5e (250ish sessions?) I've yet to see this stat modifier "power imbalance" in game play that some are lamenting. The only time, at our table, that power imbalance seemed to be a problem was due to a distinct playstyle difference which really had nothing to do with stats and everything to do with making sure the players and DM are all a match for the table.

So, I ponder, at what point does this imbalance, caused by the variability of rolling for stats, take shape? When a character doesn't have any positive modifiers? When they have at least one stat that is 10% worse than any other character? 15% worse? 20% worse? When they have only one stat that is +2 or higher while others have 2 or more such stats? When a character has stats worse than a commoner NPC (i.e. all below "average")? Somewhere else?

In a cooperative game where presumably everyone is out to have a good time, create an exciting story, and share the spotlight in the course of doing so, I'm not sure where the line of imbalance exists, or if one truly exists at all. I'm sure folks are concerned with characters being "effective", but I'm of the mindset that any character, regardless of stats, can contribute in a meaningful way. Others' experiences (and/or opinions) of course may vary - I'm most interested in hearing of experiences where low stats were a tangible problem at the table that took away from fun and story for an entire group.

 

[Oofta]

Point buy. If you roll, it's almost inevitable that one person will have significant better ability scores and one will have significantly lower. Since I run long campaigns, typically 1-20, I don't see the point. I'll spare the long diatribe, but suffice to say that I won't play a game that is intended to go for more than a few games if rolling for ability scores is the only option.

 

[The Glen]

Always roll your characters. Point buy leads to cookie cutter.

 

[Oofta]

Always roll your characters. Point buy leads to cookie cutter.

If you roll and allow people to place the numbers where they want, isn't that also cookie cutter? Just that one cookie will be chock full of delicious chocolate chip while another only has a couple? If people have to play in order rolled, don't they just play the class most aligned with the roll?

 

[Redwizard007]

Depends on the campaign. In 5e, for various campaigns, we've utilized The Matrix, Point Buy, modified Point Buy (change an 8 to a 6 for +1 to any other stat), and 4d6 drop lowest.

RE: rolling
I've had players (well, a player) get really upset about rolling two low-ish numbers and two average ones. I've had others slightly disappointed they didn't have at least one low stat. I've had players embrace a few low stats as, to them, it makes for a more interesting character. In 7+ years of DMing and playing 5e (250ish sessions?) I've yet to see this stat modifier "power imbalance" in game play that some are lamenting. The only time, at our table, that power imbalance seemed to be a problem was due to a distinct playstyle difference which really had nothing to do with stats and everything to do with making sure the players and DM are all a match for the table.

So, I ponder, at what point does this imbalance, caused by the variability of rolling for stats, take shape? When a character doesn't have any positive modifiers? When they have at least one stat that is 10% worse than any other character? 15% worse? 20% worse? When they have only one stat that is +2 or higher while others have 2 or more such stats? When a character has stats worse than a commoner NPC (i.e. all below "average")? Somewhere else?

In a cooperative game where presumably everyone is out to have a good time, create an exciting story, and share the spotlight in the course of doing so, I'm not sure where the line of imbalance exists, or if one truly exists at all. I'm sure folks are concerned with characters being "effective", but I'm of the mindset that any character, regardless of stats, can contribute in a meaningful way. Others' experiences (and/or opinions) of course may vary - I'm most interested in hearing of experiences where low stats were a tangible problem at the table that took away from fun and story for an entire group.

When I see a difference at the table, it is usually a combination of low stats AND low optimization by one player, exacerbated by high stats AND high optimization by a different player.

The first player laments their low damage output while playing a gnome bard with stats ranging from 12-16 and the Dual Wielder feat and refusing to use control spells, while the vHuman ranger is wrecking encounters with stats from 8-20 and Sharpshooter.

This isn't exclusively a stat issue. Obviously, optimization choices, play styles, and expectations play a big role here, but if both of those PCs were hitting on rolls of 12 instead of 10 and 13, there would be a better sense of parity.

The larger issue, for me, that crops up are saving throws. A few bad stat rolls can really gimp key saving throws. We all know the tanks are typically weak to Wis or Int saves, but when you have an ability score of 6 where else are you going to put it? Same with casters and Strength. This just isn't an issue with stat arrays, and isn't much of one with point buy unless players are seriously min-maxing.

 

[TwoSix]

I change it up every couple campaigns. Last campaign was a stat draft, which went great and will probably my new default. Campaign before that I did 4d6 7 times, drop the lowest. I generally favor point buy otherwise, or some kind of bounded rolling method that gives both high and low stats while keeping the overall stat modifier roughly equivalent.

I do have one guy who always insists on rolling 3d6 in order, no matter what everyone else does, which is pretty funny.

 

[mamba]

I wasn't aware that the standard array was a thing. Is that a 5E thing (which I don't play) or has it been around longer and I just ignored or missed it? While that seems to go a long way towards achieving balance it seems really boring to me but, of course, your mileage on that may vary.

it may be boring, but it is the fastest, and I use three slightly different arrays to choose from.

You still get attribute points later to spend however you want, to customize your char.

Not sure which version it first was used in, not 2e or before

 

[el-remmen]

This is where I say for the seemingly 1000th time in the last couple of decades on ENworld, "Stat Draft."

But sometimes I have returned to stat rolling or had the players roll the stats that end up in the stat draft pool.

 

[Lanefan]

Roll and rearrange.

You'll take these dice from my cold dead hands.