D&D 5E Point buy vs roll

[Lanefan]

Yeah I tend to play characters for 5 or six years. Very different experience.

I'll play a character for 5 or 6 years but not all at once; over a 10-year campaign I might run a character for 5 years in total but in between I'll cycle other characters in and out to keep things fresh.

I wonder if that's a major driver or how people feel: an overpowered character is fun at first but that wears off pretty fast (a couple months at most), whereas having a concept you're really interested in (and able to express) stays engaging for years.

No matter what the character is, I'll reach a point where I want to try something new; so that one gets retired for a bit and I'll bring in another.

 

[Parmandur]

I've found that players bas a whole hate luck. That's why the don't even want an inkling that they're going to lose.

...this is very different from my circle. The thrill of luck is a huge driver.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No one posts a poll on a forum for the purpose of scientific research. It's just for fun.

It's only scientific if it supports one's assertions. Then it is iron clad proof.

 

[Bluebell]

I'm finding this thread fascinating, because until today I was definitely under the impression that rolling was the most popular choice. As a player, I've struggled with this because when I go standard array, I find my stats are middling compared to all the rollers who always get at least one amazing roll to stick to their most important stat, but when I try rolling, I get abysmally low stats.

Last time I had to make a character, I decided to compensate for my bad luck by rolling up a "dummy character" as a decoy and then rolling up a second one that I planned to actually use. That method actually put me on par with the rest of my party for once.

 

[Arilyn]

I'm finding this thread fascinating, because until today I was definitely under the impression that rolling was the most popular choice. As a player, I've struggled with this because when I go standard array, I find my stats are middling compared to all the rollers who always get at least one amazing roll to stick to their most important stat, but when I try rolling, I get abysmally low stats.

Last time I had to make a character, I decided to compensate for my bad luck by rolling up a "dummy character" as a decoy and then rolling up a second one that I planned to actually use. That method actually put me on par with the rest of my party for once.

When I'm in a game that rolls for stats I either roll abysmally low as well or so high I feel guilty. What often happens is I'll roll up a character that averages around 7, causing the GM to take pity, allowing me to try again. This then leads to me rolling a super hero with nothing lower than 16. Rolling can be fun but I don't think it works great.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I'm finding this thread fascinating, because until today I was definitely under the impression that rolling was the most popular choice. As a player, I've struggled with this because when I go standard array, I find my stats are middling compared to all the rollers who always get at least one amazing roll to stick to their most important stat, but when I try rolling, I get abysmally low stats.

Last time I had to make a character, I decided to compensate for my bad luck by rolling up a "dummy character" as a decoy and then rolling up a second one that I planned to actually use. That method actually put me on par with the rest of my party for once.

That is because rolling is designed to produce better results. Standard array is there if you don't trust rolling and want acceptable (but hardly stellar) scores.

If you want an equivalent array to 4d6 drop lowest use: 16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 9 (bump the 15 to 16 and the 8 to 9).

Doing a point-buy with 30 points is pretty close to rolling 4d6 drop lowest (allow buying a 16 for 11 points).

 

[DND_Reborn]

Hmm. I wonder what it would look like if you just had players roll 18d6 and arrange them into any grouping of 3 that they wanted? I have no idea how one would go about modeling that statistically, but it would probably be fun to do for a game.

So, I had some time to think about this some more.

If you go best 3, next best 3, etc. like @Cadence says, you'll get expected scores of 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, 3 because with 18 d6's, you can expect to get each result 3 times (6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1).

These expected rolls sum to 63 points, which averages only 10.5 per score (worse than standard array by far!).

If you try to achieve balanced scores with less penalties, you'll of course get less bonuses. Such as 12, 12, 12, 9, 9, 9.

If you try to get the most even scores, to maximize bonuses, you'll get a set similar to the last, but a bit better: 14, 12, 12, 9, 8 8.

If you want better numbers, allow them to roll more d6's. Really 4d6 drop lowest would be achieved (sort of) by rolling 24d6, drop lowest 6. Then your expected array would be 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1. You would drop all the 1's and 2 of the 2's., resulting in a total of 76 points, or 12.67.

Going the maximized groupings you would get 18, 16, 14, 12, 9, 7; which would be a very strong array.

Anyway, you can play around with the idea and get a pool-system you like; perhaps 21d6, drop 3, would be a good middle ground.

 

[TwoSix]

More and more, I favor arrays with higher values; I like tilting the playing field towards more feats earlier rather than boring ASIs.

My friend just did an array of (19,17,14,13,12,10), which felt nice for character creation. I think I’m going to do something similar for my next game, if I don’t do stat draft.

 

[DND_Reborn]

More and more, I favor arrays with higher values; I like tilting the playing field towards more feats earlier rather than boring ASIs.

Such an array is much too high to my tastes, but to each their own.

Regardless, I understand your point about focusing on feats and not ASI. As such, we do the following:

At 5th level, you get +1 to one ability score.
At 10th level, you get two +1's, which must be used in different scores.
At 15th level, you get three +1's, which must be used in different scores.

So, you could increase one ability by +3 by 15th level, allowing a point-buy or standard array 15 with +2 ASI for race to reach 20.

You can still take feats with ASIs to increase an ability quicker.

 

[CleverNickName]

I played around with some dice models in Excel, using the RANDBETWEEN variable and 25,000 iterations. (Hey, it was a slow day and I was bored.) I thought I'd share my findings.

[1]: The average result of a single d6 is 3.5. No surprise there, (1+2+3+4+5+6)/6 gives the same result.
[2]: The average result of 2d6 is 7.0. This makes sense, because it's mathematically identical to [1] + [1].
[3]: The average result of 3d6 is 10.5. Also makes sense, because it's just [1] + [1] + [1]
And so on. nd6 = 3.5n.

Things get interesting when you drop the lowest die in a set of rolls.

[4]: The average result of 2d6 drop the lowest is 4.45. This is almost 1 point higher than the expected average of 1d6.
In other words, rolling 1d6 with Advantage is like getting a +0.95 to the roll.

[5]: The average result of 3d6 drop the lowest is 8.46. This is 1.46 points higher than the expected result of 2d6.
In other words, 3d6 drop lowest = 2d6+1.46.

[6]: The average result of 4d6 drop the lowest is 12.25. This is 2.25 points higher than the expected result of rolling 3d6.
Another way to express it: 4d6 drop lowest = 3d6+2.25.

And so on. The average result of nd6 drop lowest is 3.9n - 3.31

[7]: The average result of rolling 5d6 and dropping both the highest and the lowest results is 10.50. I wouldn't have thought the highest roll and the lowest roll would 'cancel out' each other, but apparently they do when you reiterate the equation a hundred thousand times or so.

Therefore, 5d6 drop lowest and highest = 3d6.

Ah well, I thought it was interesting.