D&D General How Did You Generate Your Most Recent Character's Stats?

[Clint_L]

With point buy and background increases to ability scores, MAD classes are not a problem. My monk started with 16 wis/16 dex/14 con/10 str/10 char/8 int, which is great.

 

[Lord Twig]

The chooseable options are the basics; if you want something special you have to roll for it and may or may not get it...this time. I do it this way for various elements of character creation, not just class. This allows rare-in-theory to be and remain rare-in-practice.

If it is just rarity of the classes you want you don't have to base that rarity on the roll of stats. You can use point buy and if the player wants to play a paladin they can roll a d20 and if they roll a 20, they can play a paladin. The same can be done for other classes. Done.

That way you don't have characters that are just better than everyone else. Unless that is what you want of course, but then it really isn't about rarity.

 

[TwoSix]

This tangentially raises another point: with point buy or standard array something I like to do becomes impossible: that being to gate certain classes etc. behind high rolls in order to make them less commonly seen in play and a little bit special if-when they do arise.

A lot of those ideas make more sense when you’re playing a high lethality game with a lot of PC turnover, AND you expect that the game will continue for quite a few real-life years.

There are a lot of us who might expect to only roll up a new character once every 2, 3, or even more years. That makes every opportunity to roleplay a particularly valued concept precious, much more important than using the character creation rules to assert some kind of in-setting reality.

 

[CreamCloud0]

With point buy and background increases to ability scores, MAD classes are not a problem. My monk started with 16 wis/16 dex/14 con/10 str/10 char/8 int, which is great.

i don't know if it's the starting scores that really put MAD classes at a disadvantage so much as the progression that comes after that, i mean, it certainly doesn't help needing to invest in multiple high scores but while it's usually quite possible to get two decent scores and even something workable to stick in a third if needed especially if using array or point buy, but your tertiary scores do end up reflecting needing to invest elsewhere, but it's after that point, where two ASI only every four levels have to be assigned in different directions either slowing your progression to a crawl or going all in on one, and that's before you even start considering being able to take any feats!

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

With point buy and background increases to ability scores, MAD classes are not a problem. My monk started with 16 wis/16 dex/14 con/10 str/10 char/8 int, which is great.

The problem I see here is you were forced to make a cookie, I mean a monk of average Strength, average Charisma, and below average Intelligence. You had very few options after ensuring that this monk had a 16* in both of its Primary Abilities. After that, you had about 15 different ways you could have gone. Which is still a respectable number, but when you chose to have a 14** in Constitution, your choices for the other three abilities were slim. They were either (8, 8, 12), (8, 9, 11), (8, 10, 10), or (9, 9, 10). You happened to choose the third option, which minimized the number of scores with a negative modifier to just one.

This embodies perhaps the primary criticism of Point-Buy -- it's a cookie-cutter method that produces low diversity in ability scores arrays. Or perhaps I should say that optimization along with Point Buy leads to low diversity. For instance, if you had gone with a 15 in one of this monk's primary abilities, you would have had 6 options for the other scores instead of 4. A 14 wouldn't have offered you more options but would have been able to get you some above average scores in the other three abilities.

Now, as I understand it, the monk is particularly dependent upon multiple abilities, so not the best example of constrained diversity in the Point Buy method. I expect a cleric might have more options.

I say all of this not as an opponent of the Point Buy method. I like the Point Buy method for the control it affords. On the other hand, the Standard Method leads to wildly unfair ability score arrays, but I think this argument is overstated


* 16 seems to be the consensus for a primary ability score.
** If you're throwing punches, then it's good to have a Constitution of 14 -- so I've been told.

 

[Clint_L]

I think your points are correct, except that I don't think character diversity has much, if anything, to do with ability scores (as I;ve argued elsewhere at sufficient length). I think it comes from how the character is created and played. From their story, in other words. So another monk will have the exact same ability scores as mine and yet be nothing at all like them.

As for my choice to take con 14: I also took the "tough" level 1 feat, since with 2024 rules monks can be quite tanky and I wanted to try that style of play (and lemme tell ya, now that she has the grappler feat as well, she's an excellent tank, especially against a single opponent like a BBEG).

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

For those of you out there claiming that Roll-With-Dice People come up with some pretty creative ways to avoid rolling badly, well yes. Here is a partial list of various rolling methods we were testing about 10 years ago on the Paizo message boards. I will say though that the Point Buy method itself is a "pretty creative way" to avoid rolling badly as well.

A decade ago I was particularly interested in constraining the variation inherent in rolling by tossing more and more dice. I had found that the more dice you roll, the more the results cluster around the average like tight little ball random numbers. This led to more predictability -- a surrogate for control.

1. Classic 3d6
2. Standard 3 of 4d6
3. Heroic 2d6+6
4. Lurk3r 3d5+3 (reroll 1s)
5. Lurk3r 2d4+10
6. Glutton 4 lowest of 7d6
7. Glutton 5 lowest of 8d6
8. Kaisoku 3d6+10 (points)
9. Jubal 1d10+7 (Way of the Wicked)
10. Arrsanguinus 5d4-2
11. Lakesidefantasy (Dice Point)
12. Arengrey 4d6 27/26/25 (mirror)
13. Murph 9d2
14. Scythia 3d4+6? (reroll 1s and 2s)
15. Lakesidefantasy 2 of 3d6+6
16. Lakesidefantasy 3 of 4d4+6
17. Lakesidefantasy 4 of 5d3+6
18. Azran 6d3
19. Nobledrake ???
20. Manimal 1d8+8
21. Lakesidefantasy 15d2-12
22. Ilja 1d10+2d4
23. Ilja 1d12+2d3
24. Ilja 2d8+1d2
25. Ilja 3d3-1d10+10
26. Majuba 5 of 7d4-2
27. Majuba 5 of 7d6-6
28. Majuba 5 of 8d6-6
29. JohnF 3d5+1d4-1
30. JohnF 2d6+1d4+1d3-1
31. Ilja 1d8+1d6+1d4

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

So another monk will have the exact same ability scores as mine and yet be nothing at all like them.

Yeah, I was thinking about this today. The classes are each dependent upon one or more abilities, but they also have multiple scores that they are not dependent on. So, we make sure they stay low in order to make other scores higher. We "dump" them so to speak, because you can't really dump scores with the Dungeons and Dragons Point Buy method because they start at at 8. I would suggest (but perhaps I'm very wrong) that these "Independent" scores would usually/always be on the lower side or even "dumped".*

The thing about "Independent" scores is that they become less impactful upon the Character and can even be ignored. Now, ignoring the impact of a low score on a Character is a style choice, I even do it myself from time to time, but this choice is particularly understandable if we have few options when choosing our scores.

I wonder if there could be a way to eliminate the need to "dump" scores. By eliminating the need to ignore them if our character concept does not fit what is available as a choice. Maybe you just want your monk to be very smart but not sickly or aloof. Maybe something like, we buy our three dependent ability scores, then we outright choose our three independent scores. These independent scores are then handicapped by only applying them to skills and...um, carrying capacity so we don't leave Strength out. Or, actually that doesn't sound like a very good idea, but something else.

On a slightly different note, this dumping of scores was why I developed the Dice Point method. It was made to eliminate the ability to dump scores at all. You manage risk with points, and you dump scores by not investing points in them, exposing them to bad luck.

* This is also true of the Standard method because of rearrangement.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I really love character generation methods. Particularly ones that leave it out of our control to some extent. It's a process of discovery, like watching an unknown seed grow to see what blooms.

Here I present a really beautiful one. The Harrow Character Generation method was created by a user known as Gulthor over on the Paizo forums back in 2016. It's a real gem. It requires a Harrow Deck and it was created for Pathfinder, but there's no reason you couldn't use it for Dungeons and Dragons.

It's not practical by any means. It's basically a Tarot card reading that turns character generation into a mini-game you play before you play the game-game. In the process, it can help you create a short background for your character through the inspiration of the cards as they are laid out. It's a lot of fun! I highly recommend it.

 

[TwoSix]

This is my current balanced but organic method for generating stats when we aren’t doing a stat draft.

1) Assign the array 9,10,11,13,14,17 to the 6 stats as desired.
2) Randomly decide one of the 3 lowest stats, by rolling a d3. (As an example, if you have a Str 10, Int 9, and Wis 11, then set 1 as Str, 2 as Int, 3 as Wis on a d3.) Whatever stat is determined, add 7 to that stat.
3) Randomly decide between one of the two remaining low stats, using a d2. Whatever stat is determined, subtract 4 from it.

As an example, I decide I’m going to aim to make a sorcerer. I assign my 17 to Cha, my 14 to Con and my 13 to Dex. As above, I make my Str 10, my Int 9, and my Wis 11.

I roll a d3 and get a 1, boosting my Str from 10 to 17. I assign Int as 1 and Wis as 2, then flip a d2, getting another 1. This lowers my Int from 9 to 5.

Final stats are Str 17, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 5, Wis 11, Cha 17. Was planning on sorcerer, but those are really good paladin or fighter stats now too.