barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
One more thing I love about True20 -- stat generation is dead easy. Your stats have total up to +6, with no one stat above -5 or below, uh, -3 I think.
If we all rolled the normal way for stats, how come he has three 18's?
wolfpunk
First Post
We use 32 pt. point buy in our games and I just had to make two characters. I found myself going with the good old 14,14,13,13,13,13. I know powergamer, but what can I say. When spells and magic items do all the heavy lifting, I never really worried about being really good at anything, I just don't want to be penalized for doing anything.
I have rolled 2 18's in a set when we used 3d6 take them as they lay. I have never rolled more than 1 18 when I rolled 4d6 drop the lowest, and I have never spent the 16 points to have an 18 when it comes to point buy.
If I have played with people who cheated on their stats it has never made a enough difference to notice.
My group is great though, they tell me the class and race they are making and that is it, everything else I find out while I DM, and honestly, I like it that way, cause then I am not metagaming around their abilities.
I have rolled 2 18's in a set when we used 3d6 take them as they lay. I have never rolled more than 1 18 when I rolled 4d6 drop the lowest, and I have never spent the 16 points to have an 18 when it comes to point buy.
If I have played with people who cheated on their stats it has never made a enough difference to notice.
My group is great though, they tell me the class and race they are making and that is it, everything else I find out while I DM, and honestly, I like it that way, cause then I am not metagaming around their abilities.
Dragon Snack
First Post
My group used to jump through a lot of hoops to get good stats (everybody did it, so it wasn't really "cheating"). Maybe their version of the "standard method" is different from yours?
My first character was a straight roll (4d6, drop one), he was so underpowered that I actually had another player say he didn't like my character because he wasn't very good. 6x6 array, reroll 1's, roll until you had at least one 18 (you name it, we probably tried it). Then we realized that it wasn't stopping the abuses and was a lot of work for not much benefit (since it didn't actually address the issue), we just wanted to say we were "rolling for stats".
We got over that and switched to point buy. We have grown to prefer it, I even put "choose whatever stats you want" on the table for the last game I DMed - nobody wanted to do it (it was not-so-unspoken that the better their stats were the harder the monsters were going to be).
My first character was a straight roll (4d6, drop one), he was so underpowered that I actually had another player say he didn't like my character because he wasn't very good. 6x6 array, reroll 1's, roll until you had at least one 18 (you name it, we probably tried it). Then we realized that it wasn't stopping the abuses and was a lot of work for not much benefit (since it didn't actually address the issue), we just wanted to say we were "rolling for stats".
We got over that and switched to point buy. We have grown to prefer it, I even put "choose whatever stats you want" on the table for the last game I DMed - nobody wanted to do it (it was not-so-unspoken that the better their stats were the harder the monsters were going to be).
The software that came with the 3.0 PHB did the same thing. We had a player who had "rolled" over 100 times...Urbannen said:
pawsplay
Hero
The one time I played Synnibarr, I rolled up a half-Amazon/half-lizardman demigod, and one of the other players rolled up a godling (three 20s). I also once rolled up a Heroes Unlimited character with a P.S. of 48 or so, after skills and alien modifiers.... the chart didn't go up that high.
Probably the second month or so I played D&D, I rolled up a character with something along the lines of Str 7, Dex 3, Con 4, Int 9, Wis 4, Cha 5. My DM wouldn't let me re-roll. I went with magic-user. I decided to simply "forget" to memorize spells, and when they wouldn't let me do that, I just decided not to cast spells. I attacked everything with a dagger. And (I'm sure you can see this coming) I killed things left and right. The fighter with the Str 18/91, however, could not hit a damned thing.
Really, the "why roll dice for ability scores?" question can be applied to "why roll dice for combat?" The fact that they are random is ultimately the point.
Probably the second month or so I played D&D, I rolled up a character with something along the lines of Str 7, Dex 3, Con 4, Int 9, Wis 4, Cha 5. My DM wouldn't let me re-roll. I went with magic-user. I decided to simply "forget" to memorize spells, and when they wouldn't let me do that, I just decided not to cast spells. I attacked everything with a dagger. And (I'm sure you can see this coming) I killed things left and right. The fighter with the Str 18/91, however, could not hit a damned thing.
Really, the "why roll dice for ability scores?" question can be applied to "why roll dice for combat?" The fact that they are random is ultimately the point.
Gort
Explorer
This whole thread reminds me why I like to use arrays (from Iron Heroes) or point buy. I pretty much trust my players, but it breeds suspicion if someone rolls at home or away from the DM and then comes to the game without a single average or below-average score. I'd sooner remove the potential for that suspicion, as well as maintaining the balance in the party.
After all, if some guy gets all 10s and a 12, and another guy gets all 18s, how on earth is the all 18s guy not going to overshadow him in most situations? Better to make it point buy or array. I prefer a choice of arrays, since it prevents players getting exactly the scores that they want, so characters don't look quite so min-maxed.
After all, if some guy gets all 10s and a 12, and another guy gets all 18s, how on earth is the all 18s guy not going to overshadow him in most situations? Better to make it point buy or array. I prefer a choice of arrays, since it prevents players getting exactly the scores that they want, so characters don't look quite so min-maxed.
Philotomy Jurament
First Post
When rolling for stats, it's best to roll them with the group present. That avoids any temptation to fudge bad rolls, and it also avoids the suspicion that you cheated if you happen to roll very good.
Addressing rolling vs. point-buy:
Rolling is not less fair than point buy, it's equally fair with a different frame of reference. That is, the "fairness" is at the 'everyone has the same basic chance' level, rather than 'everyone starts off with exactly the same number of points.' Whether you can accept the greater variety in final scores that can result is a matter of taste.
Rolling and point-buy have fundamentally different assumptions, IMO. The assumption behind point-buy is that the player starts with a character conception and uses the character creation process to realize that PC. The fun in point-buy is tightly bound to the idea of conceiving the PC. The assumption behind rolling is that fate, not player conception, is the driving force behind the character. The fun in rolling is the challenge of taking what fate gives you, creating an interesting PC from this "raw material," and surviving; the fun is the challenge of playing the hand you're dealt.
Personally, I think both approaches are fun.
Addressing rolling vs. point-buy:
Rolling is not less fair than point buy, it's equally fair with a different frame of reference. That is, the "fairness" is at the 'everyone has the same basic chance' level, rather than 'everyone starts off with exactly the same number of points.' Whether you can accept the greater variety in final scores that can result is a matter of taste.
Rolling and point-buy have fundamentally different assumptions, IMO. The assumption behind point-buy is that the player starts with a character conception and uses the character creation process to realize that PC. The fun in point-buy is tightly bound to the idea of conceiving the PC. The assumption behind rolling is that fate, not player conception, is the driving force behind the character. The fun in rolling is the challenge of taking what fate gives you, creating an interesting PC from this "raw material," and surviving; the fun is the challenge of playing the hand you're dealt.
Personally, I think both approaches are fun.
Greylock
First Post
My gosh, I haven't had a natural 18 in a stat since 2003. I've gotten there with Racial adjustments, but not naturally. And to be honest, if I rolled up a character with three 18's I'd probably toss it out as unplayable.
In all the games I play in, the standard is 4d6, reroll the first one, drop the lowest. And in most cases, we roll at the table. If anything, we still run into periods of such crap rolling, we've had to implement various "momentary house-rules" declaring that a certain ability modifier combined + number must be reached, but even then, if a player can't reach that plateau in, say, six rolls, they are stuck with their gimp. ;p
In all the games I play in, the standard is 4d6, reroll the first one, drop the lowest. And in most cases, we roll at the table. If anything, we still run into periods of such crap rolling, we've had to implement various "momentary house-rules" declaring that a certain ability modifier combined + number must be reached, but even then, if a player can't reach that plateau in, say, six rolls, they are stuck with their gimp. ;p
Ridley's Cohort
First Post
pawsplay said:
If randomness were always a good thing, we should just randomly generate all encounters in the dungeon and dispense with this silly superstitious thing called writing up adventures, right?
A certain degree of unpredictability within encounters is a good thing -- that is why we roll dice in combat. But even within that context 90+% of combats are heavily stacked in favor of the PCs, aren't they? Obviously some kinds of randomness are good and some less good or bad.
Running a campaign that is intended to last many dangerous encounters imposes many practical restrictions, including a degree of editorial control on which kinds of randomness are allowed to run rampant.
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