D&D 5E Minimum ability scores for a PC

[Laeknir]

That explains some of your more off the wall comments in other places.

In all seriousness, if that works for you, fine. But it also makes many of your mechanical observations suspect.

What mechanical observations? I've never made a single post about 5E mechanics, or any mechanics of the game in any edition.

 

[professorDM]

I want my players to feel like they're playing uniquely gifted characters with tons of potential, should they be lucky enough to survive. I let players roll 4d6 and choose the highest three rolls, and if a player rolls something truly off the wall and out of balance with the rest of the group (and particularly if the player making the bad roll is new to the game), then I'll let them either reroll an entire new set or reroll their lowest score.

To me good stats don't denote a particularly powerful being (that comes with experience and levels and the abilities and spells that follow), but rather the potential to be truly great. But I've played mostly 2nd edition AD&D, where stats perhaps don't matter as much as they do in this latest edition.

Also perhaps important is that when I have tended to DM, I've created long, drawn out, epic campaigns, and I want my players to be excited about the potential and the uniqueness of the characters they've created----while at the same time understanding that one false move, one bad roll, one CRIT from that goblin with the great axe and you're dead.

It's always tended to work for the folks I play with, but we're also a tightly knit group that's played together for awhile. I can see why folks who play at public venues and with players who come and go all the time would prefer to use something like the default point-buy system in the 5th Ed. PHB.

 

[Fralex]

I like rolling for stats, but I've always been fine with letting people adjust things if they don't get a fun array. Not necessarily a really GOOD array, just one with an interesting mix of numbers. One time I got a lot of bad stats and my cousin got a lot of good stats, so I traded one of my bad numbers for one of his good numbers.

I've lately been experimenting with putting bad numbers in universally important abilities. I've been a wizard with a CON of 8 (I got knocked out almost every session), and I'm currently playing a sorcerer with a DEX of 6. I'm trying to compensate with the Healer and Tough feats, with varying success. It's kind of fun to look for ways to protect your character when they need mage armor just to bring their AC up to 11!

 

[77IM]

I hesitate to share this, because some people have freaked out when we tell them how we do stats. But it's worked for us for years.

We let people create their character concept, and allow them to choose stats that they think are appropriate. No rolling of dice, we just let players assign whatever values they think are appropriate for the PC they've created.

Interestingly, no one in our groups has tried to take advantage of this. It's very rare to see anything below 10, but it's also very rare to see an 18. We tell them to think very seriously about what their scores should be, based on their concept, and they're fair.

I wouldn't try this with a completely random group at a gaming store, or with young kids, but we get ability scores that are generally in the same vein as "roll 5d6, choose the three highest" and in many cases 4d6 choose 3.

I've both played and run games like this, and it's awesome. It's by far my favorite character creation method. Definitely not appropriate for every group, though.

 

[Lanefan]

In the right group the method used by [MENTION=33994]Laeknir[/MENTION] would flat-out rock.

In my game every character is rolled (point-buy and array are considered Evil concepts here); I've a "DM's prerogative" rule saying if a set of rolls before any adjustments for race etc. has nothing higher than 13 and-or the overall average is less than 10 you can chuck it and start over. As we use 5d6 drop-2 it's quite rare this ever comes up. But if you end up with 17-15-12-10-10-4 you're gonna keep it; it's up to you what you do with the '4' and how you play it.

I've also found, after doing some lengthy number-crunching a few years ago, that starting stats make surprisingly little difference to a character's eventual career length. I've seen a character that started with 18-18-17-17-15-15 die in its first combat; I've seen more than one character who started with something like 15-12-11-10-9-6 get into our Hall of Heroes.

As for what's boring or not in play, I'd probably take 17-11-11-10-10-10 over 14-14-14-13-13-13 every time. The first has one good stat and a bunch of average ones, all of which give some fun ideas for play. The second is good enough at everything to be boringly competent, but neither good enough at anything to really stand out nor bad enough at anything to cause trouble.

As for those who think it's "punishment" for a player to have to play a low-stat character, keep in mind that nothing lasts forever; characters come and go and at low level there's little if any chance of bringing them back. Which means one of two good things is inevitably going to happen: either your low-stat character will die off and thus give you another crack at rolling, or it'll survive long enough to become significant and give you some stories to tell about beating the (imaginary) odds.

Lan-"instant recipe for fun playable entertaining character: roll a 7 and stick it into Wisdom"-efan

 

[Acr0ssTh3P0nd]

I'd use the standard array more often if it would guarantee that my characters could have one score of 16 after racial adjustments, no matter what the race is. It's my single biggest pet peeve about 5e. The playtest had the right idea, making the starting array have a 16 in it and having racial boosts be a +1. It means that my Warforged Wizard would have a 16 Int right off the bat.

 

[Redthistle]

I'd use the standard array more often if it would guarantee that my characters could have one score of 16 after racial adjustments, no matter what the race is. It's my single biggest pet peeve about 5e. The playtest had the right idea, making the starting array have a 16 in it and having racial boosts be a +1. It means that my Warforged Wizard would have a 16 Int right off the bat.

I largely agree with you on this point.

 

[chriton227]

I had a thought this morning about a variant way to roll stats to give more variety than point buy or standard array, without the potential impact of hot or cold dice. Take 24 cards and number them so that you have 4 each of the numbers 1 through 6 (or if you have an Uno deck, just grab the cards you need from the deck). Shuffle the cards, then deal 4 for each stat, and discard the lowest card for each stat. The stat is the total of the remaining three cards. It is effectively 4d6 drop lowest, but with the rolls forced to be an even distribution. This method means that there is no way to have more than one 18, but likewise prevents an excessive number of low stats.

If you want to even it out further, remove the four 1s and two of the 2s from the deck, then just deal 3 cards for each stat (modelling the best case scenario of the "low" cards being dropped being the lowest possible cards from the deck). This preserves the maximum of a single 18, but also means that the lowest possible stat is a 7 and if you get a 7, then at worst you can only one one other stat below 10 (with that being a 9).

 

[Redthistle]

Chriton77 got me thinking outside the box about simple variants to rolling dice. Here's one:

For each ability roll 1d12 and add 6, giving a range of 7 to 18.

Let's face it - that d12 doesn't get enough exercise and probably would like a chance to get out of the dice bag a little more often.

 

[Chocolategravy]

One of the many differences between PCs and monsters is that a monster never goes below 0. If they have -3 from STR and 1 from proficiency, they end up with 0, not -2. I think this is due to them trying to (and almost successfully) completely eliminate subtraction from the game in an attempt to speed things up.

Fair is fair however, if you want to allow players to have lower scores than the array would normally allow, letting them have a minimum of 0 on a roll like monsters could be a houserule to consider.