Random Character Generation

[Toj]

One thing my players and I like is the randomness of rolling ability scores.

One thing I don't like about this is the point spread that can come from this. Right away you can mess up the true 'power' of a character.

One person could roll:
11, 9, 10, 15, 9, 13 for a total of 67

Another could roll:
17, 16, 15, 17, 13, 9 for a total of 87

There is already a big difference in power between these two characters.

Does anyone have a way of enjoying the flavor of randomness, but still having the whole 1st level character being the correct CR.

I have thought about making a little chart for "ECL" modifiers based on your point total. Where if you roll between a and b your ECL is 0, if you roll between x and y youe ECL is +1.

Any ideas?

 

[perivas]

Here's one method. Let's say you have 5 players. Roll up 30 ability scores. Make 6 little, identical slips of paper. Write the first highest score on one, write the next higher score on another and so forth. At the seventh score, write it on the slip with the sixth highest score, working back and forth all the way down. Throw your numbers into a hat. Have each player draw one out! They should be fairly equal and there's still a lot of randomness involved.

 

[Drunken_Master]

While randomness sometimes plays in the players favour, our group uses the point buy method to distinguish our abilities... Not so random, but players aren't too powerful and are all on the same page. No character is substantially stronger than an other...

I'll explain point buy incase some don't know it...
We start with 30pts
All abilities begin at 8 (-1 modifier)

You have to buy your abilities... Here's how it works...

18 costs 16pts
17 costs 13pts
16 costs 10pts
15 costs 8pts
14 costs 6pts
13 costs 5pts
12 costs 4pts
11 costs 3pts
10 costs 2pts
9 costs 1pt

Knowtice that a player can't have less than 8 or more than an 18 unless he has a race modifier. I tend to buy two 16s and divide the remaining 10 pts between 10 and 13.

 

[silvertable81]

We usually get 32 points from our DM, which is qualified as a High Level Game in the DMG. True, it drops the randomness, but the give and take adds to the excitement.