Stat Generation - your wierd and wacky ways

[Fieari]

(Tangent/Nitpick, spoilered so as not to derail the thread too much)

Spoiler

The QWERTY keyboard is not utter crap. One of the key benefits of the qwerty layout, which came as a side effect from the need to reduce the number of times adjacent levers would be pushed, is that for most words, you alternate hands for alternating letters, which is a KEY factor in typing speed.

An analysis of the DVORAK claim can be seen here: http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html which goes into why there is the wide held belief that QWERTY is inferior... mostly, it's because people keep quoting the same old studies and the same old advertisements from the inventor and patent holder of DVORAK. The studies are flawed though, and ad copy is, well, inherantly biased.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

I just thought I'd chime in with my opinion on this, because it's a strong one.

I really don't understand how it could be considered 'fun' to have stats you don't want for your char. Pointbuy already comes with checks and balances--and you can have weaknesses where you want them, instead of forced upon you. Random statgen tends to favour those who are simply lucky, or those who can whine and wheedle the GM the best. Those who favour random statgen seem to think that if the party has two fighter types, one of whom is clearly superior stat-wise to the other, the weaker character's player is considered 'immature' if he can't 'suck it up' and enjoy the character.

Bullcrap. Utter, complete claptrap.

This mindset seems to translate to "Keep the players down. Never let them play quite the character they want. Give the character a flaw the player hates. If the player doesn't like it, that's his problem. What a wuss." I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to play under a GM like that. (And I have in my early years, before I learned to be picky. Many times... *shudder* : )

The fact is, it is perfectly natural to compare your char to others. And if the *only* reason why his char is better than yours is due to six rolls of the dice...you're going to have problems with that. And for something your character would have to live with for the rest of its existance! Sure, if you're mature, you can rise above all that--but why should you have to?

One of the biggest claims in support of dicerolling stats is that pointbuy and similar methods produce 'cookie-cutter' chars. Now, this was sort of true in previous editions of DND, where stats, gear, level, and HPs were pretty much the only things that differentiated Fighter A from Fighter B.

However, in 3.0 and 3.5e, this is no longer the case. Stats are a very minor aspect of a char. There are races, classes, skills, feats, prestige classes, chosen spells, etc etc. It would be *very hard* for two different players to create the exact same character. They would have to really work at it!

Random statgen is an insult to the player (you're not a good enough roleplayer to allow your character any weaknesses!) and it's mean-spirited (like an adult holding a candy just out of a toddler's reach. "Yes, these are the stats you *could* have--but The Dice Gods Say No!")

Random statgen will never, ever appear in a campaign I run. And the game would have to be otherwise VERY good for me to even consider accepting it as a player.

Has anyone here said point buy isn't a viable option? Your vehemence is ill placed and, frankly , kind of rude.

edit - I see Indy Pendant has clarified his position - sorry I took it personally but it did come across as pretty antognistic. For me I like a balance between random and assigned which is why I think the start with 8 add xd6 rolsl to your stats method may work out the best for me. I've never used it before and perhaps it will be a disaster but I won't know until I try.

 

[DanMcS]

I'm often strongly tempted to go with a point buy method very similar to the one in the PHB.

Every stat starts at 11 (essentially) and accumulates costs points equal to its bonus. So a 12 (+1) costs 1 point. A 13 (+1) costs another point, for 2 total. A 14 (+2) costs 2 more, for a total of 4.

The nice thing about this method is that it's similar to regular point-buy, but comes with a nice formula- an even stat costs points equal to its bonus squared, the next odd up costs bonus^2 + bonus. Makes it very rapid to eyeball stats this way. Want a 20? It's +5, costs 25 points.

Then instead of a stat boost every 4 levels, I could give stat points, and also possibly allow feats to be spent to buy more stat points.

I think this formula would work for D&D or MnM, actually, especially since everything in MnM is point-bought.

 

[Conaill]

I'm often strongly tempted to go with a point buy method very similar to the one in the PHB.

Every stat starts at 11 (essentially) and accumulates costs points equal to its bonus. So a 12 (+1) costs 1 point. A 13 (+1) costs another point, for 2 total. A 14 (+2) costs 2 more, for a total of 4.

Not bad, but it removes any incentive to have any stats below 11. I wouldn't go so far as to encourage people to take *really* low stats, but an occasional 8 or 9 here and there makes for a much more "organic" character.

I do agree that the price increases for pointbuy should fall at the odd-to-even boundary, because that's where you get the increase in bonus. Otherwise you get the rather nonsensical effect that a 14 and a 16 costs just as much as two 15's. Sure, a 15 is still better than a 14, but the difference in usefulness between 15 and 16 is definitely greater than between 14 and 15 - a fact that should be reflected in their pointbuy costs!

That being said, I would prefer a pointbuy schedule like this:

 8  0
 9  1
10  2
11  3
12  4
13  5
14  7
15  9
16 12
17 15
18 19

(Obviously, you would also assign slightly more points for a "default" character. I'm guessing something like a 29-30 point character using this table would be equivalent to a 25 point character using the standard pointbuy table.)

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

My way is very different: I let the players pick their stats. They can't pick numbers that the dice can't give them, so no starts with a 30 for instance. But if a player wants all 18's, more power to him. Though in practice I have never had a play choose higher then a 16 and all of the players so far have choosen at least one stat 8 or below.

Heh. Nobody wants to be the first guy to pick an 18.

 

[Nyaricus]

moderator PLEASE READ

could we leave this thread open till the new year, and then archive it? I think this was a wicked place for ideas and such, and would be usefull for many.

 

[Baron Opal]

I used to have my players roll 4d6-1 in lots of 6, but the players often kept rolling and rolling. I've tried to explain that a 14 in 3E is a good stat, but it often falls on deaf ears. I tried point buy, but I see the same character sets come up time and time again. Even when I'm trying to vary the scores, patterns crop up. So, I've tried rolling 2d6+6, make two characters. The players really like that one. the "best" character that's come up from that is 17, 17, 16, 16, 14, 13. The worst is 16, 15, 13 ... and and 11 as the lowest. All the players seem to be satisfied. There is a chance for luck and no one gets really ugly stats.

 

[Sravoff]

This is pretty much what we call the "we're all adults here" method. We use it with pretty much any game we play.

I use this when some one says they ahve a campaign to run, and I am still a couple of hours away, my scores are almost always lower than every one elses.

I am cool like that.

I'll probably use this in my next campiagn.

 

[Sravoff]

Back in 2e days I used an odd system that was pretty fun.

Stats were a two stage process, you had a pool of 26 dice to apply to each stat. You assigned the dice in whatever groupings you wanted, then rolled and took the highest 3.


In this manner you could guide the character towards an intended goal by placing more dice against a given stat.
In play it was occasionally funny, like the time my 2D6 CHR rolled higher than my 6D6 STR!
Oh well, made for a fun Half-Orc weakling thief anyway

I really liek the sound of this! Now I am torn between this and the "We're all adults here." Maybe I'll geive playersd the choice.

By the way, I am very glad to ahev stum,bled upon this thread.

 

[Crothian]

Heh. Nobody wants to be the first guy to pick an 18.

They don't know what the other players have picked. Each player makes up their character by themselves.