D&D 5E How does your group determine ability scores?

[DND_Reborn]

roll 24d6 as a group. Remove the lowest 6, then arrange the remaining 18 results amongst the Stats, 3 dice of the player's choice to each ability.

Interesting! I'll have to look at the math behind this...

 

[Mannahnin]

For 5e I use 3d6, assign as desired.

If players are unhappy with their attributes they may invoke a Faustian bargain, in which they may reroll the character but must keep the new rolls regardless of whether it's an improvement. Further, I take the discarded stats and craft them into an enemy who is on the hunt for the PC.

Nice! I did the Faustian bargain thing with HP in my 5 Torches Deep game in the first few levels. If a PC rolled a crappy HP roll I would let them re-roll; at the cost that if they survived to next level, they'd roll HP for that level at Disadvantage.

 

[Musing Mage]

FWIW, I believe you. If I actually bother making an "NPC" villain, and not just a "creature template" villain, I also craft them as if they were a PC build--even if higher level/ more powerful of course.

I don't make it of higher level, I keep it equal to the PC. The purpose isn't punishment. It's in part to show that stats aren't the be all and end all of a character. It's also in part something I felt could be interesting in a game - to have a nemesis off the bat. So I gave it a try.

Like I said upthread though, only two players have taken me up on it since I implemented the option - one player departed before it could catch up and the other is a backup character so hasn't come up yet.

 

[Maxperson]

Oh noes! A random internet troll doesn't believe me! My whole day is ruined! I must now go rethink the entirety of my existence.

Perhaps post the character and edition used. And whether you rolled or assigned stats for numbers that you didn't have. For example, if I was the only player to choose to re-roll and I re-rolled a single stat of 7, how would you determine the other 5 stats?

 

[WarDriveWorley]

Interesting! I'll have to look at the math behind this...

Enjoy the mathing.

So far (out of 4 campaigns) it has made characters that are strong in their main and secondary without being too strong who also have some weaknesses.

 

[Mannahnin]

Yeah, us too. Everyone I've ever known who's rolled will take their rolled-stats as-is if they are good but will whine and whinge if they're bad and expect a reroll. Therefore, rolling always, ALWAYS results in above-average rolls. Worse, the player who rolled a "just okay" character winds up stuck with it, while the person who rolled badly and rerolls often gets a better array than the one who rolled "fine" the first time. That's the part that I find unfair, and the main reason why I use point-buy.

This is an issue, yeah. In my current Old School 5TD game I tried to keep it objective by just having them roll 3d6 (for humans; demis get a bit of a different deal), but requiring them to re-roll if their total modifiers were under 0. But I still didn't like the re-rolls.

Someone on these forums made the excellent suggestion for OSR/old school of "flipped/mirrored" stats, where you just roll once but can choose to subtract all values (in order) from 21. This makes every "hopeless" set into an above-average or great set, which I dig.

 

[Musing Mage]

Nice! I did the Faustian bargain thing with HP in my 5 Torches Deep game in the first few levels. If a PC rolled a crappy HP roll I would let them re-roll; at the cost that if they survived to next level, they'd roll HP for that level at Disadvantage.

That's wild. Do you get a lot of complaints when the subsequent rolls go south? I've seen players get really salty when it comes to hit points...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You may find playing characters with vastly different inherent capabilities fun, I don't. That's fine, there is no one true way.

I do, however, object to the "a true role player doesn't care about stats" and the "use point buy if you only care about combat" that always seems to come up. I wouldn't want to play in a group where my PC had far better ability scores than everyone else any more than I want to play with ability scores significantly below.

We all play for different reasons. I would even be okay with rolling (and rolling poorly) for a short term game. I don't want to do that kind of inequity when we're likely going to be playing our PCs for a year or more.

Never said anything about a true roleplayer and so on. That is in your mind. I just said, that you said, you simulated combats and your result was twice the survivability for well rolled characters and I admitted, that for combat, very inequal stats can make problems if you don´t chose your classes wisely.

And I don´t have to tell you, that what you do is totally ok too, since of course it is, because it is a preference which is always OK.
I

Actually, if I build characters for fun, I nearly always use standard array and in rare occassion point buy. Because for testing concepts rolling is totally useless, because it is random.
Also I would not mind playing in a standard array game or point buy game, but I prefer rolling.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I don't make it of higher level, I keep it equal to the PC.

Mine are higher level if they are solo BBEGs, for example. In my 1-20 campaign, the BBEG was a Wizard 18/ Warlock 2, but with a couple epic boons to represent that he was "above" level 20. Against a party of 6 level 20 PCs, it made for a heck of a fight!

Now, if any player went to level 20, playing a Wizard 18/ Warlock 2, and continued to adventure, earning some epic boons, they could have made the exact same PC as I made for the villain.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It's as boring as picking a class or a skill instead of rolling one randomly.

Totally...

This is why I used "..." around boring.