Rolling for stats. Need some advice

[Tequila Sunrise]

Thats not my intention at all... You really should chose a better choice of words with regards to how you use them. One may easily have taken your response to more of an insult than anything else.

Sorry if I came off that way; I just thought you'd want to have a player's perspective.

 

[Salasis]

The way we have rolled is the standard roll 4 drop lowest but, when you are done with all of your stats you take your lowest stat and make it an 18. Also we do a trade off system where you and drop one stat by 2 points to raise another stat by 1 point. so if you rolled 8, 14, 12,12, 12, 12, bad stats by most estimates and mediocre at best. You could have 18,16, 10, 14, 10, 10 which is pretty good for any class. Just something else to think about.

 

[Herzog]

Just wanted to add another option I have had a DM use, particularly interesting because it actually introduced low stats:

roll 5d6 drop 2 lowest 4 times, roll 5d6 drop 2 highest 2 times.

This should result in 4 high stats and 2 low stats.

With all high stats, your character becomes kind of boring.
With a few low stats, you have a start to give your character some 'character'.
(The strong but dumb barbarian comes to mind, the intelligent but weak mage, the wise but clumsy Priest)

 

[Dandu]

With a few low stats, you have a start to give your character some 'character'.

I find that my character's character generally comes from his character, not his stats.

 

[Vegepygmy]

What does a fighter with 14 strength do?

He fights, I assume. Otherwise we'd call him something else.

I mean, he's not hitting things (well), he's not dealing damage (much), and I doubt if he's the party face...

Oh, please. His attack modifier is 1 less than a fighter with 16 Strength, or 2 less than a fighter with an 18 Strength. And yeah, he deals less damage than they do, too. I'm not saying he's just as good; I'm saying you don't always have to be the best you can possibly be at something to be good at it and to have fun doing it.

Seriously, I will never understand people who need high stats in order to enjoy the game. I have never, not once, played a character and said to myself: "Boy, this would really be fun if he had an 18 instead of a 14 in that ability score." I just...I just can't relate to that sort of thinking at all.

I understand that you can still roleplay with low stats since there's nothing stopping you from saying "Thog smash talky man for hurting puppy" but when it comes to the actual smashing, it seems like there's going to be a problem.

I guess it depends on what constitutes a "problem" for you. If it's a "problem" to miss your attack roll 5-10% more often than you otherwise would, I guess there would be one. To me that seems like no big deal.

I'm glad you have fun roleplaying, but I am talking about mechanical performance.

Yeah, I get what you're talking about. That's why I pointed out that I have both enjoyed RPing characters with so-so stats and found them to be useful in combat. They're not equally useful, of course, but they're hardly crippled, either.

If everyone uses low stats, and/or if the DM softballs, then you probably won't notice a difference. However, if you play with someone who rolled 18, 17, 17, 16, 15, 14, you'll probably notice a difference in contributions; likewise, if the DM doesn't decide to go easy on you, you're likely going to take a dirt nap real quick as rocket tag tends to be unforgiving of people with low saves and special defenses.

Again, I've never claimed there is no difference -- just that the difference isn't as vast to me as it apparently is to you.

If you want, you can build a level 2 fighter with the stats 15, 14, 14, 10, 9, 8 and we can run some numbers. How would you say we determine if something sucks or not? I'm thinking we put it in a party and run it against some CR appropriate monsters. Or we could come up with some things a level 2 fighter should be able to take on his own (two CR 1/2 orcs, for example) and have a few mock battles.

Leaving aside the absurdity of attempting to quantify "suckage," I think maybe I see why you feel such a need for high stats: your understanding of what an "appropriate" challenge is.

Two CR 1/2 orcs are not something a level 2 fighter "should be able to take on his own." That's an EL 1 encounter, considered "challenging" for a party of four 1st-level adventurers. Adding one level to the fighter doesn't even remotely compensate for the presence of three other characters. The way I play the game, I would expect a 2nd-level fighter to lose that fight four out of five times; that you expect him to win speaks volumes as to the differences in our playstyles.

I suspect that in your games, PCs typically (rather than only occasionally) face encounters well above their APL, which would indeed make high-end stats more important to have.

 

[Dandu]

Well, not so much as PCs face challenges above their EL so much as I play spellcasters who are very effective (even if they have low stats) and when I play a melee character, I would like to be as effective... which low stats tend to prevent.

ie, Fighter with Str 15 tries to trip an enemy. Does not do it very welll. Sorcerer with Cha 15 casts Grease on multiple enemies; DC 13 reflex save vs prone. Ok, the DC sucks, but even then if the enemy wants to move it's a DC 10 balance check, and most enemies have a modifier on their balance check of horrible, whereas, say, orogs in fullplate have one of fail. In a similar vein, Web screws with the enemy even if they make the save, Magic Missile always hits, Enlarge Person never sucks if you've at least the Cha to cast the spell, etc.

Incidentally, even if you do not regularly face encounters above your EL, the DMG states that it should happen on occasion, and if that occasion comes up and you're found to be wanting...

Two CR 1/2 orcs are not something a level 2 fighter "should be able to take on his own." That's an EL 1 encounter, considered "challenging" for a party of four 1st-level adventurers. Adding one level to the fighter doesn't even remotely compensate for the presence of three other characters. The way I play the game, I would expect a 2nd-level fighter to lose that fight four out of five times; that you expect him to win speaks volumes as to the differences in our playstyles.

I'm not saying he should be able to take it on his own (that would be nice) but if you're in a party and it's attacked, you will be in melee with enemies (since that is your job) and you should be able to survive in combat against them for a few rounds, as your allies will take some time to put it down.

So, if you're attacked by a Huge Monstrous Centipede, you should be able to do something to slow its advance, protect the other party members, and not die in the process. I question the ability of a fighter with low stats to do this effectively.

 

[Theone0581]

Well I sent out a text message to all my players allowing them to reroll this one time using that system that I was talking about earlier. I told them all that they had yesterday and today to see me if they were interested, and to my surprise, none of my players responded to my text. The day is almost over too, so I suppose my players are not as worried about have scores of 8,9,10,10,12,13.
Which I am completely okay with, but if they think that they can just die without and reroll the same character for the soul purpose of getting better stats, they should considered consequences.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Which I am completely okay with, but if they think that they can just die without and reroll the same character for the soul purpose of getting better stats, they should considered consequences.

Pfft, noobs. Real gamers know not to make the characters they actually want with low scores. If you roll low, you make an "interesting concept" character. Then make your real character after your inevitable death and subsequent reroll, so the DM doesn't catch on! (Or at least, doesn't have enough evidence to convict you.)

'Kay, seriously, are your players actually kamikaze-ing themselves in order to reroll?

 

[billd91]

Seriously, I will never understand people who need high stats in order to enjoy the game. I have never, not once, played a character and said to myself: "Boy, this would really be fun if he had an 18 instead of a 14 in that ability score." I just...I just can't relate to that sort of thinking at all.

[Nigel Tufnel mode]...Because this one goes to 11.[/Nigel Tufnel mode]

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I don't know if this helps at all, but in the campaign that I am running right now, I simply let the layers assign whatever ability scores they wanted to their characters. It seems to be going pretty well, so far.