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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 8726640" data-attributes="member: 22424">I've gone through loads of stat generation methods over the years. My ultimate conclusion was that I never found one I was particularly happy with - random methods tended to throw up too many disparities within the party, while point buy (and, worse, standard arrays) led to cookie cutter characters.So eventually I decided not to worry about it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Of my recent campaigns, two used the standard array, and one used a choice of a few array options. My next campaign will likely have the players each roll 4d6-drop-lowest once or twice each, going around the table until we have six stats, and everyone using that.But possibly the one I found I liked the most, which I used in late 3.5e, Star Wars Saga, and a few other games of that era, was to give each player a choice:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Roll 4d6-drop-lowest. You get to reroll if your net bonus is (IIRC) +1 or less, or if your highest stat is 13 or less, but otherwise you're expected to play the character generated as-is, and play in good faith - no suiciding a 'bad' character! Or...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Use 28 point buy using the point costs in the 3.5e DMG. Or...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Use the fixed array: 16, 15, 13, 12, 10, 8.</li> </ul>(I haven't updated this method to 5e, largely because the point buy system is so different. Plus, with my current group adding that choice is probably not ideal at this stage.)The logic underlying the choice is that the rolled method is on paper the best, in that your stats will probably be highest. But because you don't get to choose, there's not as much scope for optimising. Conversely, point buy gives the most control, and most scope for optimising, but is on paper the weakest. And the fixed array lies in the middle.One last note: if doing point buy in 5e, my strong inclination these days would be to roll the racial ability score adjustments right into the point buy - so grant a number of extra points to spend, and allow stats of up to 17 to be bought.</blockquote>

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