Monk/Paladin help...

[orsal]

I wrote a little excel sheet that rolled 30 sets of characters using 4d6 drop lowest with each recalc, and highlighted scores of 17 or 18 in particular colours. I could get someone with two 18's in every 90 characters 'rolled' or so, but in a dozen test runs I never got anyone with three 18's.

This was purely a mathematical exercise you understand

You must have had a fluke to get as many as one character in 90 with 2 18's. According to my calculations, about one 4d6 character in 11 will have at least one 18, one in 265 will have at least two, one in 12,000 will have at least three, and one in 990,000 will have at least four.

 

[the_bruiser]

You must have had a fluke to get as many as one character in 90 with 2 18's. According to my calculations, about one 4d6 character in 11 will have at least one 18, one in 265 will have at least two, one in 12,000 will have at least three, and one in 990,000 will have at least four.

Well, I got a little creative . I ran 100,000 simulations of 4d6-take-best-three in a statistical package I have. And I really gave the benefit of the doubt and said that no attribute could be less than 10. Then I added up the pluses.

RESULTS:
Analysis #1 - The average was +6.7 with standard deviation of 5.7; this guy's total of +20 is ~5 deviations from the mean. Guys, this is WAY FAR AWAY from the mean. Of course, you could argue that this distribution will feature right skewness and that st dev isn't the perfect analysis. So...

Analysis #2 - The HIGHEST net plus in my 100,000 simulations was +18.

Either way you stack it up, I'm not sure I believe those numbers are 'real.' If the guy is playing a munchkin/superhero campaign I just wish he'd say it.

Or maybe he's just a troll .

PS - Nobody likes my monk? *grin*

 

[orsal]

Either way you stack it up, I'm not sure I believe those numbers are 'real.' If the guy is playing a munchkin/superhero campaign I just wish he'd say it.

Or has a very generous DM. Prince Zane hasn't told us what method he used to roll the abilities. I'm pretty confident, based on my calculations above, that it was a far more generous method than 4d6!

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Or has a very generous DM. Prince Zane hasn't told us what method he used to roll the abilities. I'm pretty confident, based on my calculations above, that it was a far more generous method than 4d6!

Yes, at first I was going to make mention of the implausibility of the rolls. Then it occured to me that if you are using 7d6 drop lowest 4, you're still "rolling" for stats. So those rolls could be perfectly legit, just not the same system many of us use.

 

[the_bruiser]

Yes, at first I was going to make mention of the implausibility of the rolls. Then it occured to me that if you are using 7d6 drop lowest 4, you're still "rolling" for stats. So those rolls could be perfectly legit, just not the same system many of us use.

I agree... meant to make it more clear. My statement 'munchkin/superhero' was meant implicitly to include this possibility, as in my opinion 7d6 *is* munchkin/superhero .

 

[rangerjohn]

Nobody has advocated a non-human build. So, so far that is not a problem.

 

[PrinceZane]

Template char, game tomorrow! (saturdays)..

Thanks for all the help guys... I think I'm gonna follow Plane Sailing's template for the moment, see what happens... A few notes though...

1. The way we do stats is a 4d6 drop lowest in a 6x6 grid...
12 13 14 13 18 14
15 16 8 16 ... etc... when get done w/ 6x6, pick a number, scratch off the horiz/vert in the row and do that until u have 6... I threw my stat sheet away, but I did not cheat, DM was presant and cursing virtually all my rolls , and I used 3-4 different sets of dice because I kept being claimed of loaded dice. I just had a good night, by far the best I've had.

2. DM "highly suggested" I look into Pal.. I'm taking it as a hint meaning "That's so nice of you to volunteer for the Pali of the party".. So scratch the monk bit.

3. I'm still a D&D noob, only being in the realm for < 1 year, but I have no idea what the munchkin/superhero whatever thing is you guys were talking about, heh.

4. The only thing with Plane's template, is I can't take leadership till lvl 12.. My last char, I took it and made my cohort my crafter, DM didn't like that I was getting 1/2 off items and not loosing XP (cohort, not me, Muahaha!) so He banned it until 12. So atm I have comb expertise, imp disarm, mounted combat, divine power, leadership... However, we have a fighter that's majoring in disarm, so would I need it also? Have 2 people disarming, or would it be unnecessary redundancy? If it's redundant, then I have 2 feats left to pick... well, except to take divine might I have to have Power Attack as prereq feat.. so if I dont need disarm I have 1 left, if I should keep it, then I'm full... Without advise, I would say Imp Init due the lowish dex on Plane's template.. but maybe (likely) there's something I'm not thinking of/unaware of.

5. If someone took 7 levels rogue, then 3 lvls of monk.. If me, and RogueMonk were flanking Enemy, and he used flurry of blows... Would he get sneak attack for each flurry hit, or just once for the "flurry of blows" attack? DM says once, I disagree, he said if I prove wrong then he'll allow it. The flurry fo blows stats "When doing so, she may make one extra attack in a round..." and sneak attack reads, "... unable to defend himself effectively from her attack, she can strike a vital spot for extra damage." I would say since flurry says "attack" and sneak attack says "attack" then you get sneak per flurry shot.. but maybe I'm not reading something or have stack rules wrong or something. Clearification would be nice.

Thanks again!

 

[Kae'Yoss]

1. The way we do stats is a 4d6 drop lowest in a 6x6 grid...
12 13 14 13 18 14
15 16 8 16 ... etc... when get done w/ 6x6, pick a number, scratch off the horiz/vert in the row and do that until u have 6... I threw my stat sheet away, but I did not cheat, DM was presant and cursing virtually all my rolls , and I used 3-4 different sets of dice because I kept being claimed of loaded dice. I just had a good night, by far the best I've had.

Ah, so it's a combination of above-average generation method and fiendish luck on your part. I know that. Have a good time with those stats. And by all means, play a Pal/Monk. It's rare enough that you can make that work with the stats, without abandoning some aspect of the combo.

As for the dice rolling method: I advertised abandoning rolled dice in favour of point buy for exactly that kind of thing (well, and people being frustrated that they roll crap).
In my first 3e campaign, we had 4d6, drop lowest, roll 7, drop lowest, and increase one ability score by one. Result was two decent sets of sets and one with two 18's. The resulting druid (wis 18, con 18), was untouchable and had far more HP than the party fighter (OK, he was bladesinger, and only has d8, too, but he did have some d10 from fighter).
The next campaign I played with that group used the same method again, despite me almost begging the DM to use point buy. Result: This time it was me who got the two 18, who were put into Dex and Con, for the d20 Modern Soldier I rolled up. It was a short campaign, and the following D&D campaign used point buy

5. If someone took 7 levels rogue, then 3 lvls of monk.. If me, and RogueMonk were flanking Enemy, and he used flurry of blows... Would he get sneak attack for each flurry hit, or just once for the "flurry of blows" attack? DM says once, I disagree, he said if I prove wrong then he'll allow it. The flurry fo blows stats "When doing so, she may make one extra attack in a round..." and sneak attack reads, "... unable to defend himself effectively from her attack, she can strike a vital spot for extra damage." I would say since flurry says "attack" and sneak attack says "attack" then you get sneak per flurry shot.. but maybe I'm not reading something or have stack rules wrong or something. Clearification would be nice.

When you flank an enemy, every single melee attack would benefit from Sneak Attack. That is, if that guy were some combo of epic monk/assassin/fighter with 6 attacks (4 for BAB plus 2 for flurry), he could score 6 sneak attacks. 7 With haste.
You don't stop flanking the guy. Attacking from hiding can usually only done once, as you're not hidden after that, but flanking remains.

 

[PrinceZane]

Oh yeah...

Doh, forgot to mention this above:
If a Circlet of Persuasion allows a +3 competence bonus on Cha based checks.. does that mean checks specifically for Cha (cha based skills or saves with Cha save checks), or does that extend even to anything that has Cha mod added to it (like Pali gets cha in will/fort/ref saves eventually...) ?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Doh, forgot to mention this above:
If a Circlet of Persuasion allows a +3 competence bonus on Cha based checks.. does that mean checks specifically for Cha (cha based skills or saves with Cha save checks), or does that extend even to anything that has Cha mod added to it (like Pali gets cha in will/fort/ref saves eventually...) ?

Unfortunately, Divine Grace is not a Charisma-based check. It merely adds your Charisma-bonus to your Saving Throws. The Circlet of Pursuasion will not help you with it.

It will, however, strengthen your Turning Attempts (the Turning "attack" roll is a Charisma check.)