Speaking of Alternate Ability Score Generation

[D20 Addict]

Okay, a sytem I came up with for my high powered game is this: all players start with a 10 in each ability score and roll d8 to add to each score. If your ability score average is 12, you gain two extra points to apply wherever you wish. Any thoughts on this?

 

[Zack2216]

That's not bad, you have a chance to get 11-18 evenly. You could come up with as many 18's as you have 11's. But when you compare it to 3d6, it isn't as difficult to hit an 18. Though the score is still valuable, it might become more common.

 

[ichabod]

Okay, a sytem I came up with for my high powered game is this: all players start with a 10 in each ability score and roll d8 to add to each score. If your ability score average is 12, you gain two extra points to apply wherever you wish. Any thoughts on this?

Mean ordinal abilities without the extra 2 points for 12 or less are 17.29, 16.21, 15.07, 13.93, 12.79, 11.70. Medians are 18, 16, 15, 14, 13, 11.

Normal approximation gives the chance of having an average of 12 or less at 0.38%.

So it will give you a range of decent values, but the extra two points will almost never come into play (maybe once every 250 characters). If you give the extra two points on an ability average of 13 or less instead, that will apply to the bottom 5% of characters. If you want to give it to the bottom 10% of characters, go with 13.3 or less.

 

[kwiqsilver]

That could screw over a player who makes a bad roll.
8+2d5 or 10+2d4 would be more even.
I prefer points. In my group each player has 90 points to distribute (minumum 8, maximum 18). It gives an average of 15 and allows us to make characters who can qualify for a good range of feats and prestige classes.