D&D 5E Point buy vs roll

[MNblockhead]

Point buy has always looked weird to me, and seemed like a video game type feature, something you would see in a D&D based video game. Having played since 98 for me making characters has always been a big part of playing the game, imo when you're doing it you're already playing D&D, and in my experience and that of most players and Game I've known, point buy takes some great excitement and tension and discovery out of making characters.

I get it. I started in the early-mid 80s. I enjoy both. On one end of the spectrum, I rolling atributes randomly--in order--with no roll-4 and drop the lowest. I even enjoy being handed a pre-gen or randomly generating an entire character on D&D Beyond to see what I can do with it.

But I also enjoy making a build and pursuing a specific concept.

Both are feel like D&D to me.

Just don't take away alignment. ;-)

 

[Scruffy nerf herder]

The method that I use is 4d6*8. Subtract the worst of four die and then subtract the two scores they want. It suits me better than anything I've seen in a phb because it doesn't normally affect the primary attributes all that much, mainly it entices the players way more to have fun using skills, they look at their sheet and say "look at all this stuff I'm useful with" even though I constantly adjust DCs on the fly to craft a good experience, it'll always be as difficult or easy as I want that way.

Another benefit is if players want one or two flaws, of the 8 rolls they should normally be able to pick that many flaws.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I kow the thread is 5e only and answered the poll as such.

I am playing with friends so I don't have most of the problems mentionned abiut cheating and we do have fun rolling. It creates great disparity sometimes and in thos case it was solved in different manners: I remember being allowed to reroll a really bad array, in another case we had two groups (high rollers and average rollers) so the average rollers were compensated with a karma trait to give them a few inspirations points during play (we normally don't use inspiration) and in the third case a low roller developped a "free" dragonmark in game. In all the cases we trusted the GM to find a fun way for everyone to shine.

Totally irrelevant the best chargen system I ever saw was in the old (1992?) computer game Darklands. I spent hours making characters...

 

[jgsugden]

1.) Roll 2d6 six times. Add 4 to each result.
2.) Decide whether you want to apply them in order, or reorder them. If you take them in order, the DM will give you a minor perk, such as a minor magic item, an ally, a weak feat, etc...
3.) If you do not like the result, use point buy and get teased by the DM (either for your weak rolling skills or your cowardice).

 

[Irlo]

Does anyone here just let players choose their ability scores, without dice, points, or arrays?

I should have added:

I was thinking of a char-gen session back in high school. Everyone was furiously rolling and rerolling and adding dice to subtract dice and throwing away characters. I told them they could just pick their stats. They looked at me like I was crazy and kept rolling until they got what they wanted.

I never repeated the offer.

 

[ad_hoc]

Yeah, polls here don't really tell us much. If nothing else there really should have been a "standard array" option because a lot of people who checked "other" seemed to do it because they use the standard array even if I would just consider that point buy. DndBeyond might have a clue based on their demographics, but even then it would probably have to be analysis based on the scores people have so it would be a bit suspect.

I wouldn't be surprised if next release puts rolling and point buy on equal footing and just says "ask your DM". In any case, I have my preference and even if someone is creating a couple dozen sock puppet accounts to skew the results it wouldn't change my mind.

Yeah.

Point Buy is a variant rule and Standard Array is the default option (along with rolling) so the distinction is important.

Our table only does Standard Array. We don't do point buy.

 

[aramis erak]

I generally view Standard Array as a subset of point buy.

In 5e (and IIRC, 3E), it is a valid point build.

 

[d24454_modern]

The method that I use is 4d6*8. Subtract the worst of four die and then subtract the two scores they want. It suits me better than anything I've seen in a phb because it doesn't normally affect the primary attributes all that much, mainly it entices the players way more to have fun using skills, they look at their sheet and say "look at all this stuff I'm useful with" even though I constantly adjust DCs on the fly to craft a good experience, it'll always be as difficult or easy as I want that way.

Another benefit is if players want one or two flaws, of the 8 rolls they should normally be able to pick that many flaws.

It seems like the point is to get high enough attributes that die rolls don't actually matter.

 

[Hriston]

So, how to roll ability scores to reflect that and get as close to a normal distribution as possible?

What I finally resolved on was 15d2 - 12.

I came to the same conclusion. It's also remarkably close to the "averaging" method suggested for "general" characters in the 1E DMG: roll 3d6 but count 6's as 4's and 1's as 3's.

 

[Scruffy nerf herder]

It seems like the point is to get high enough attributes that die rolls don't actually matter.

It seems like your point is hyperbolic and we're really talking about 5% differences.