D&D 5E Point buy or Dice?

[The Human Target]

Point buy, 100% of the time.

If you can't make an interesting character without rolling, something has gone wrong.

But even if you want to roll, there are many ways to do so without having a wild degree of randomness.

There is enough randomness in the game itself, no need for it before the game even starts.

I agree skill in play is more important than stats, which to me is an argument for not rolling for stats not the other way around.

 

[fuindordm]

I just thought about this because I'm kicking off a new campaign tonight.

The disadvantage of point-buy is that there is an obvious right way to distribute the stat array (or points) to min/max a given class, so you have cookie-cutter or at least uninspiring characters.

The disadvantages of rolling depend a lot on your method. "Arrange as desired" has the same disadvantage as point-buy. So I went looking for a compromise and decided that I liked the method 4d6-drop, but assigning each roll to a stat before going to the next, which at least has the possibility of generating some surprises.

My final rule is designed to create an incentive for playing PCs with a non-traditional dump stat:

You can choose:

Option 1: 25-point buy in the range [8,15], and if you place an 8 in an ability that handicaps your character then you can add 1 to your highest score and take a free skill or tool proficiency.

Option 2: 4d6-drop, assign each score as you roll it, finally swap any pair. If you end up with a -2 penalty or worse in any score, or a score of 8 or less that handicaps your character, then you can add 1 to your highest score and take a free skill or tool proficiency.

It looks like about half the players are doing point-buy, and half are going to roll their stats.

 

[graypariah]

I think what it comes down to is your players.

If you even have one "power gamer" in your group you will almost certainly need to use point buy. The reason? Encounter difficulty. Designing encounters when one of the party members is more powerful than the other three combined and has three times the amount of durability gets old very fast. The encounters need to be one of the following: too easy for the party, too hard for the party, or so complicated that it makes random encounters nearly impossible. None of those options really appeal to me as a DM so I generally use point buy.

Now I would love to have no power gamers in my group and be able to have dice rolled stats, but since all of my D&D is online there seems to be nothing but power gamers. I do make them roll the hit dice in chat however.

 

[BenK]

Someone in our group found "Roll 4d6 by cards no replacement" on the internets, and it seems to find the sweet spot...

This is exactly what I've been looking for. Perfect.

 

[Herr der Qual]

I think the most telling part for me is that die rolled characters are almost universally higher point buy value than standard. Yes, there are exceptions, but, generally, anything that's really low gets tossed. Several people in this thread said exactly that. So, it's not so much about getting random stats, although that's part of it, but, IMO, it's mostly about getting better starting stats. I mean, heck, even the OP's die rolled character is significantly higher value than standard with four base scores sixteen or higher.

I hear all about this or that die roll method, but, again, funnily enough, all of them skew to higher than standard value. Other than the 3d6 in order hardcore version which gets some notoriety, I've yet to see someone start promoting a random chargen system that would baseline at standard point buy or even baseline lower than standard.

I'm not really convinced that it's all about playing to weaknesses when the OP's character is basically the equivalent of a level higher because of its stats.

I do agree with your argument, and I can't believe how many of the people here have been talking about the level of forgiveness they themselves as DMs or their group DM has allowed when rolling, but the nearest thing to a reroll that exists in my group is one swap that is you can change one stat for another no rolls, no additional dice. The first system I ever played was Rifts and they have a really weird dice rolling system that allows for some absolutely insanely unbalanced parties, you roll 3D6, if your roll is under 18 that's all you get, if you roll 18, you roll another die 6, if it comes up 6, roll another, this continues until your starting stat maxes at 30. And in Rifts your character gains no attribute points ever, no items increase them, leveling up doesn't increase them, so whatever your stats are, are what your stats are, also there are no racial modifiers, and we played that rule to the T. I played a lot of terrible stat characters in that game, I played in Palladium (which has the same rolling and leveling system as Rifts) a Dwarf Monk in a party of Dwarf's that had the following stats (stat names changed to D&D titles)

Str: 12 Int: 6 Speed: 11 (you roll speed in that system)
Dex: 8 Wis: 8
Con: 9 Cha: 3

In the Palladium system 12 is the lowest number without a negative modifier, I had no bonuses, I played him anyways, and I struggled every session to survive every encounter, and being a Monk, I gave 90% of my wealth to others, I never once bought a magic item, I found a few useful ones, I completed the campaign with him (we closed the campaign at 12th level).

That isn't the only horrible character I have played, I was once forced to play an Elf, because the other character wanted to be a race that only the elves didn't want to kill on sight, I hated him and basically tried to kill off my character by being reckless all the time, survived being KO'd a sickening number of times. In D&D I have played some horrible characters, some amazing characters (like my current) and some interesting characters (where I didn't have two stats that were compatible) but I've enjoyed playing every one except for the two I've played point buy, because I played my point-buy cookie cutter and wound up with an *average* character, I would honestly rather get stuck with that monk dwarf that an average character, because I'm strange as all get out.

*Edit* I just had the thought that in Rifts you may get to roll an additional dice (the first time) if it is 16-18.

 

[Cristian Andreu]

I've used 4d6 drop lowest (8 times, choose the highest 6) since I started, and still use it today.

Nowadays, though, I give players the option of either using the standard distribution or risking higher/lower scores by rolling. Almost always they go with rolling.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

If you are going to roll but then allow rerolls for stuff like "I've only got one 14 or higher" then you should just as well pick stats or use point buy. We just use the 3e rule, may be 5e as well not sure, that add up your bonuses and if you are not at least a +1 you can re-roll. Though I have had players take a crappier set for some reason once or twice. Usually there are a several PC at the table with a couple stats below 10 and nobody in the current group has all that amazing stats. It tends to fall all around the standard array when they roll.

 

[doctorhook]

Rolling is more fun, but I'm soured on it because of 5E's ability caps (which I like). It sorta bugs me that the party's fighter, a mountain dwarf who rolled a 17 Strength, has no use for Gauntlets of Ogre Power, because he's already as strong as an ogre; the cleric (who avoids melee) ended up using them, because the rogue and wizard had even less use for them. This convinced me of the reason behind that cap of 15 on point-buy base scores in 5E; a 1st-level fighter with a 15 can still have a 17 Strength AFTER a racial bonus.

I looked at a few options before I decided on rolling stats in a tight range with the following method:

Roll 3d4, drop the lowest, then add 6 to get one score; do this thrice for three scores.
Roll 3d4, drop the lowest, but this time add 7; do this thrice for three more scores.

The lowest possible array will be 9 9 9 8 8 8, and the highest possible will be 15 15 15 14 14 14, and the average will be 13 13 13 12 12 12. This method of rolling closely replicates the outcome of using point-buy, but with more variation between players. (I'd be open to giving each character an automatic 15 if they take an automatic 8 as well.)

My players' characters will definitely be weaker under this proposed system than they are currently, but they'll have more room to grow. I'm also really not convinced that a net -1 to their base scores will be even remotely crippling; 5E and "bounded accuracy" seems to keep things pretty tight. Overall, after six months of 5E, I'm quite convinced that this will be a net benefit for our game.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Why would the cleric avoid melee with all that heavy armor and good weaponry? Ogre gauntlets come in handy for clerics I always thought.

 

[doctorhook]

Why would the cleric avoid melee with all that heavy armor and good weaponry? Ogre gauntlets come in handy for clerics I always thought.

Knowledge cleric. Also, that's just how the player wanted to play him.