D&D 5E How do you determine your initial Attributes?

[gorice]

I have a lot of respect for people who do 3d6 in order, but I feel like rolling is pretty pointless if you're doing 4d6 drop lowest and then putting them wherever you like. In same cases, players are clearly fishing for high stats, and then you have to deal with their overpowered build/puppy dog eyes when the dust settles. I go standard array and recommend it to my players when I DM, but I'll accept point buy as well.

I actually think attributes are basically pointless in 5e and probably should have been dropped a couple of editions ago, and I can't stand to see the corpse of rolling dolled up and paraded around in this edition.

 

[R_J_K75]

Thats one of those 'the RNG blessed me' type events.

Its not impossible, just unlikely to see so many high stat rolls. It seems Ive seen it more and more over the last 20 years which is strange considering that character creation and stat rolls/options are pretty forgiving from 3E-5E.

 

[TwoSix]

My current new favorite method of rolling is 7d20, reroll 1s and 2s, keep highest 6.

 

[Oofta]

You really need an "other" or at least a "roll with modifications". A lot of people seem to do 4d6 drop lowest in theory but really have a minimum allowable score, roll multiple times, so on and so forth.

Personally? I really dislike rolling. At any given table you will on average have one PC with very high stats, one with very low stats. I've seen it, it wasn't fun for the person with the high scores or the low scores. IMHO if you want higher starting ability scores, just look up 3E's elite point buy option. If you want randomness, create a few arrays using point buy. Rolling? Just leads to winners, losers, and oftentimes suicidal PCs if they fall in the latter category.

In any case I don't want to get into that whole long rant. But you really do need an "other" category.

 

[Scribe]

In any case I don't want to get into that whole long rant. But you really do need an "other" category.

I refuse!

In all seriousness, I'm looking specifically at the options provided in the core 5e, thats all.

 

[Oofta]

I refuse!

In all seriousness, I'm looking specifically at the options provided in the core 5e, thats all.

Whereas I think it would be more interesting to see how many people use the "official rules" versus home brew. Maybe we need dueling polls because we haven't had enough duplicate forum topics lately.

 

[Arilyn]

I whole heartedly agree if stats are rolled they must be done in open. Back in our 3e days, we had a player roll an 18, 17, 16, 16, 15, 14. If he had just shown up with that, no one would have believed it. He actually rerolled because he felt guilty and didn't want that many high stats, especially since the rest of us were significantly lower.

 

[Shiroiken]

My group always wants to roll, but the various DMs adjust the "lower rolls" to bring them up to the initial group average. Despite the fact that I'm usually a beneficiary of this, I'm not an overall fan. I'm considered the "strict" DM, since while I allow rolling, I only allow a fallback to standard array. I also allow point buy, but no player has ever taken this option.

We created a large number of arrays so there is more choice over just the one in the book.

This is something I want to do. I want to create a set of arrays, mostly based on point buy, that fulfills the desire for RNG without making major character disparities. I'd like a few that are actually lower or higher than point buy, but not by much (maybe 2 points, tops). I'd also have a few that go beyond the point buy, such as having a 5-7 or a 16-17. Still working out the bugs though.

 

[Scribe]

My group always wants to roll, but the various DMs adjust the "lower rolls" to bring them up to the initial group average. Despite the fact that I'm usually a beneficiary of this, I'm not an overall fan. I'm considered the "strict" DM, since while I allow rolling, I only allow a fallback to standard array. I also allow point buy, but no player has ever taken this option.

Interesting idea, you could allow 3d6 rolling, and then take the average of the group, and if someone is out by 4-6 (??) from the average give them a few floating numbers to bring them up?

 

[Maxperson]

As a DM I give my players the option to roll 4d6 and drop the lowest roll and assign the rolls as they want. I let them roll 2 sets and pick one of the 2 or roll a third set which must be kept. I make them roll in front of me because I cant stand when players roll up a character then bring it to the table with higher than what could realistically be rolled. I had a player email me a 6th level character they "rolled" up last week thats a 1/2 orc fighter with 18 str, 16 Dex, 18 Con, 14 Int, 14 Wis, 16 Cha. Its not worth questioning because theyre not going to admit to just filling in the ability scores they wanted but Im highly skeptical that they rolled scores high enough before ASI to come out those numbers.

It does happen, though. In the last campaign I played in I rolled a Bladesinger with 13, 20, 16, 17, 14, 11 after racials. We all roll character together, so...