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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 6868661" data-attributes="member: 6801845">Yes. Part of my problem with die rolls is that I've seen people be very frustrated by the results.  In a game long ago and in a state far, far away my wife and I joined a game where they used a strict roll 4d6 drop lowest.  My wife and I went in with character concepts in hand and she rolled poorly.  As in a 14, a 10 and everything else below 10.  Another gal (Sue) at the table rolled a couple of 18s, and maybe a low stat of 12.Neither my wife nor Sue were happy with this.  My wife was told she had to use what she had and the DM just laughed when she asked if she could reroll or use a different method to get stats.  I think Sue felt guilty and her character eventually commited suicide-by-goblin.  I invoke the "I can't testify against my spouse" rule to verify whether my wife modified her stats after we got home.I don't think it matters whether my wife and Sue were "right" to feel this way, the fact is that they did.I'm not personally obsessive about min/maxing.  Under the current system, I would rarely buy a 15 and may never get my current character's primary stat to 20 (then again he's a weird build).  So the exact range of stats I end up with isn't all that important, it is more of a question of whether I have a system to build a character I had envisioned.I think a related issue is that I see a lot of people who use modified roll rules (probably better than saying C.H.E.A.T.) is that it leads to stat inflation and what I'm going to call Golden Child syndrome.Golden Child syndrome is when everybody is nearly perfect from day one.  They are smarter, stronger, more charismatic than anyone.  All stats are above average and many characters start out with a 20 in their primary score which to me is not realistic.The problem is that everyone has strengths and weaknesses, it's part of what makes us human.  The other issue is that it doesn't give you a lot of room to grow.  Last, but not least, most DMs will simply up the difficulty level of challenges to compensate.If you don't use rules that guarantee higher than average scores, then on average there's going to be a pretty big difference in ability scores between two people in the group.  This makes it even harder for the DM since they have to create challenges for Super Dave which won't totally frustrate Wimpy Kid.As far as the 8 int ... first, I don't see it.  Or if I do, I don't know since I don't know what other character's stats are.  All I can say is that I rarely use int as a dump stat.  I do occasionally because sometimes it's fun to play a dumb character.Second, IMHO most people you encounter on a daily basis have stats between 8 and 12.  Some people are a little slow, some people are quite bright but not geniuses.  I'd probably say I'm around a 12 strength but my wife is an 8 (she's kind of a wimp), etc.So having characters with a low stat of 8 just means that in some attribute many characters are on the low end of average.On the other hand, int scores (high or low) is something that is difficult to implement in play.  A high strength is easy - is the character strong enough to bust open the door is resolved by a die roll.  But a high int character being played by an average int player?  You can give out hints with arcana or investigation checks, but that seems like a cludge.  On the flip side most people don't play stupid even if their characters are idiots.</blockquote>

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