D&D 5E How do you generate ability scores for PCs?

[Oofta]

You assume that they can just choose where to place all of their stats. If rolling in order, or with say swapping only one pair of stats, both very common ways of rolling, that can't happen.

True. I just don't know anybody who plays that way personally (and I would not want to). I would assume though that most people are still going to play to the strengths of the points you have. You will still have a high score somewhere and a low score somewhere else, it can't be avoided.

The end result is the same ... if you have a high int you're probably going to play a wizard. You may be an abnormally strong wizard, but a wizard nonetheless.

If that's what you want to play I don't care, it's just my cup of tea. Stats are about the last thing I think of when I come up with a character concept.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Well, but isn't that going to be the case no matter what? Unless all your stats are, much like the children of Lake Wobegon, all above average you're going to have a low score or two somewhere.

At least with point buy I have a reasonable low score (although admittedly I did have cursed character back in the 3.5 days with a 5 charisma). Personally I frequently make my "low" score 10. I like having the choice.

I guess this and the "cookie cutter PC" arguments just never made any sense to me. Are most wizards smart? Of course. Bards charismatic? Usually. As far as cookie-cutter PCs go, I don't see that either. Well, there's the one guy who always plays a halfling rogue or a female wizard, but that he'd be playing the same characters over and over again no matter how we generated scores.

For me its about seeing paladins with high int, or strong wizards. Rolling sometimes gives you those interesting stats. Point buy or default doesnt

 

[Oofta]

For me its about seeing paladins with high int, or strong wizards. Rolling sometimes gives you those interesting stats. Point buy or default doesnt

Sure it does, if that's what you want to play. Just because you can min/max doesn't mean you must min/max.

 

[Maxperson]

True. I just don't know anybody who plays that way personally (and I would not want to). I would assume though that most people are still going to play to the strengths of the points you have. You will still have a high score somewhere and a low score somewhere else, it can't be avoided.

The end result is the same ... if you have a high int you're probably going to play a wizard. You may be an abnormally strong wizard, but a wizard nonetheless.

If that's what you want to play I don't care, it's just my cup of tea. Stats are about the last thing I think of when I come up with a character concept.

The end result is nowhere near the same. The high int fighter will be different from the low int fighter who is different from the high charisma fighter, and so on. Cookie cutter characters come from arrays and point buy due to both the placement and similarity of numbers across the board. Simply having a high prime stat isn't nearly enough to produce a cookie cutter environment.

 

[Oofta]

The end result is nowhere near the same. The high int fighter will be different from the low int fighter who is different from the high charisma fighter, and so on. Cookie cutter characters come from arrays and point buy due to both the placement and similarity of numbers across the board. Simply having a high prime stat isn't nearly enough to produce a cookie cutter environment.

I've always used point buy and I've had (relatively) high int fighters and high charisma fighters. It just depended on what I wanted to play. In the campaign I'm DMing I have a fighter who's an intelligent bookworm while I used to have a high charisma fighter who was dumb as a box of rocks.

Point buy just gives you freedom to play the character you want to play, not what random luck dictates.

I don't care how you generate characters, all I'm asking is that you stop making broad, antagonistic statements about how people using point buy "always" do this or that.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I guess this and the "cookie cutter PC" arguments just never made any sense to me.

I never really thought much of it myself until about the 6th Pathfinder campaign I participated in. At the start of that campaign, I realized that across the entire party save one character that the only ability scores anyone had were 16 and 10 (with that one character being a specific experiment as a result of the player realizing everyone else, and even them self at first, had these sets of scores that were either 16 or 10, and deciding to see what would happen if the player intentionally aimed for scores being as equal across the board as was possible).

Then I asked the players why it was that they had ended up with those score sets, and they told me it just felt like the natural thing to do to get the scores they wanted high to at least 16 and the scores they didn't care as much about to at least 10 because the point buy system allowed for doing that.

Basically, the entire "build your scores with 20 points" rule was actually playing out as if it actually said "you have a 16, two 14s, and three 10s to assign", and I thought that wasn't really all that entertaining in comparison to other potential outcomes - so my group moved away from that rule to rolling scores, and immediately saw the end of every character having the same set of post-modification scores arranged in a different order (and eventually we moved on to the rule being "just get scores you'll be happy to play with, I don't care how you get there or what they are.").

 

[Valetudo]

For me its about seeing paladins with high int, or strong wizards. Rolling sometimes gives you those interesting stats. Point buy or default doesnt

So basically like I said. You will end up with a Uber character with no weaknesses. That's more cookie cutter than having to make a choice. I'm guessing you would never choose dex as a dump Stat over it to get a high int pally.

 

[Valetudo]

I never really thought much of it myself until about the 6th Pathfinder campaign I participated in. At the start of that campaign, I realized that across the entire party save one character that the only ability scores anyone had were 16 and 10 (with that one character being a specific experiment as a result of the player realizing everyone else, and even them self at first, had these sets of scores that were either 16 or 10, and deciding to see what would happen if the player intentionally aimed for scores being as equal across the board as was possible).

Then I asked the players why it was that they had ended up with those score sets, and they told me it just felt like the natural thing to do to get the scores they wanted high to at least 16 and the scores they didn't care as much about to at least 10 because the point buy system allowed for doing that.

Basically, the entire "build your scores with 20 points" rule was actually playing out as if it actually said "you have a 16, two 14s, and three 10s to assign", and I thought that wasn't really all that entertaining in comparison to other potential outcomes - so my group moved away from that rule to rolling scores, and immediately saw the end of every character having the same set of post-modification scores arranged in a different order (and eventually we moved on to the rule being "just get scores you'll be happy to play with, I don't care how you get there or what they are.").

I've never seen anyone do that with point buy ever.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't care how you generate characters, all I'm asking is that you stop making broad, antagonistic statements about how people using point buy "always" do this or that.

You need to re-read my post a few times. I said very clearly that point buy produces a cookie cutter environment, not that you do it or people "always" do it. It's like living in California. California produces a sunny environment. Does that mean that there aren't quite a few cloudy/rainy days? No. Does it mean that there are a lot more sunny days than Seattle gets? Absopositively.

You are going to find a lot more cookie cutter character generated by point buy and arrays than by rolled stats. That's a fact.

 

[Maxperson]

The masked double post bug strikes again!