D&D 5E How do you avoid overshadowing while applying ability scores as rolled?

[S'mon]

That's the other thing: not all ability scores are equal. Roll badly for constitution, and you get a free red shirt. Roll well for Intelligence and the careers adviser has only one option open for you, but roll well in Charisma and you have lots of options.

This is true. Because I give everyone a free 15, everyone has lots of options, though a few classes with dependence on several stats may be ruled out by several low rolls - eg if you roll low on all of STR DEX and CON then Fighter probably becomes non-viable. A heavy armour Fighter needs both STR & CON, though they can probably get by with CON 10 at a pinch.

 

[Leatherhead]

The issue there is that players then get to allocate stats, which is exactly what I want to avoid.

Why?

About two years ago I just gave up having players make their own characters, mostly due to wildly different levels of system mastery. I ended up giving everyone the Standard Array, ending up with no less than a 14 and no more than 16 in their primary attacking stat. Every character is functional, every character has a weakness.

But here is a way to really neutralize the majority of problems that rolling can produce:

Have them roll for their Class and Race first.
Hard set their Primary Stat to 14, ignore any racial modifiers.
Soft set their Constitution to 13, allow racial modifiers.
Roll whatever else you want for their rest of their stats.

Everyone is competent in their role, everyone could have theoretically survived childhood without stubbing their toe and bleeding to death. And all you really have to watch out for are the Gish Subclasses. But I have a feeling that capitalizing on your secondary stat is part of the intended flow of such a campaign anyway.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Have them roll for their Class and Race first.
Hard set their Primary Stat to 14, ignore any racial modifiers.
Soft set their Constitution to 13, allow racial modifiers.
Roll whatever else you want for their rest of their stats.

This is an interesting idea, but it kind of incentivises players to choose races who are naturally "bad" at the class choice. I suggest a modification:

Have them roll for their Class and Race first.
Set any two ability scores of the player's choice to 13 before racial modifiers.
Roll the other 4 randomly.

 

[ccs]

People pointed out the undesirable possibility of overshadowing. Where a player with less lucky rolls is in the shadow of another's very lucky rolls.

How do you mitigate or avoid that?

As the DM? Or as the unlucky player?

As the DM.
I don't really. I just try & focus equal story attention on each character regardless of their stats. Same as I always do. The rest is up to the players to sort out. You don't want to be overshadowed? Then find some way to use what you do have.

As a player?
I participate. I'll be damned if I'm going to let someone with a higher + overshadow me. I came to play this game & I'm not going to just sit there while everyone else does stuff. Yes, they might roll better than me. But my stat modifiers are not the only aspect of my character. So I'm going to be doing stuff, influencing the game, adding my 2+cents to the story, & generally seizing my share of the spotlight.
Garth, my 1/2ling who's best mod was a +0 Con? He didn't do anything concerning rolling dice well. But he did stuff & added to the story....
And in some editions I can improve those poor stats provided the character survives long enough.
This is also my approach to, and advice for, playing Fighter types. All too often you read people lamenting that their fighter "has nothing to do outside combat". BS. Quit sitting there watching & participate.

 

[Leatherhead]

This is an interesting idea, but it kind of incentivises players to choose races who are naturally "bad" at the class choice. I suggest a modification:

But they aren't choosing their Race, they are rolling for it.

 

[jgsugden]

#1: Mix allocation and rolls. They pick a class. They assign a 15, 14 and 13 to three most impacted ability scores for that class. Then they roll 3d6 for the remaining three ability scores.

#2: Use 2d6+4 rather than 3d6 (if the top is less than 14, make it 14). You get a narrower range (6 to 16), but still great variation (a bell curve around 11 with you typically getting 0 to 2 stats at 8 or below and 1 to 2 stats at 14 to 16).

#3: Story. Give the players with the 'lesser' stats a juicy role playing story that puts them front and center. The high stat PC may shine more in combat, but there are ways to shine that have no dependence upon ability scores.

#4: Magic. In one rolled stat game we had a PC with nothing above a 13. He played a wizard. They quickly found a headband of intellect.

#5: Don't, maybe? You don't need to make any adjustment for some groups. The game can still be a lot of fun for a PC with lower stats in the hands of the right player.

 

[Azzy]

The issue there is that players then get to allocate stats, which is exactly what I want to avoid.

Someone suggested choosing the array at random... that could be a good option.

Coosing an array at random seems like the only real solution given your contraints. There should only be 36 permutations with the six static numbers. So, make a list of your permutations, and assign them each a number between 5 and 40. That will allow you to randomly determine the array with 5d8. Unfortunately, this introduces a bellcurve, so some arrays will be more likely to be rolled than others (and you'd have to determine which arrays you want to be more common.

However, without a d36, you'd otherwise need to cull down the number of permutations to get the flat distribution of a single die roll. Maybe cull it to 33 arrays, and give each array a 3% chance on a d100 (with 00 being rerolled), otherwise your next step is a d20 (which requires culling even more arrays).

 

[ccs]

You could also simply roll a d6 for 1 stat (1=str, 2=dex, etc).
This is where your highest stat goes.
If you fail to roll a 15+? Then your highest stat becomes a 15.

Now pick race/class.
If the player chooses something that doesn't optimize with their stat? Oh well.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Coosing an array at random seems like the only real solution given your contraints. There should only be 36 permutations with the six static numbers. So, make a list of your permutations, and assign them each a number between 5 and 40. That will allow you to randomly determine the array with 5d8. Unfortunately, this introduces a bellcurve, so some arrays will be more likely to be rolled than others (and you'd have to determine which arrays you want to be more common.

However, without a d36, you'd otherwise need to cull down the number of permutations to get the flat distribution of a single die roll. Maybe cull it to 33 arrays, and give each array a 3% chance on a d100 (with 00 being rerolled), otherwise your next step is a d20 (which requires culling even more arrays).

To eliminate the curve just use 1d100 / 2 (reroll 36 through 50).

 

[Shiroiken]

One of my DMs uses a system where everyone rolls as normal. He then totals the scores for each character to get an average. Anyone below that average can add the difference to their ability scores. If one or more players roll well, this boosts the rest of the group up.