That works pretty well. I just tried it about a dozen times and I like it.I like the Dragonbane method: 4d6-L in.whatever order you like, but you place each roll as you roll it and it is locked in (except the last roll which you can swap with another if you want). It offers some control but maintains the possibility of unexpected scores.
Yeah. That's why I have them lock in the 5d6-2L, 4d6-L, and 3d6 rolls to stats before they roll, but allow them to swap any one pair of stats at the end.I like the Dragonbane method: 4d6-L in.whatever order you like, but you place each roll as you roll it and it is locked in (except the last roll which you can swap with another if you want). It offers some control but maintains the possibility of unexpected scores.
I'm always interested in ability score generation systems and this is one which is simple and does just what I want:
1. based on rolling d6's
2. keeps an average of 12.25 to 12.75
3. (a) generates scores which are common to point-buy and the standard array (-1 to +2 modifiers) or
3. (b) makes extreme scores (8 or less, 16 or higher) very rare
Here are two varations:
3A. No Duplicates (score range 9 - 15)
Roll 4d6 and drop lowest, but no die result can occur more than once. For example, if you rolled 2, 3, 3, 6 you would reroll one of the 3's, but you cannot roll a 2, 3, or 6 on the reroll; if you do, keep rolling until you get a 1, 4, or 5.
What this does is keep the lowest possible roll to 1, 2, 3, 4 (total 9 for best three) and highest possible roll 3, 4, 5, 6 (total 15 for best three). In fact, there are only 15 possible combinations, with an average roll of 12.6. While this average is better than the normal 4d6 drop lowest (12.24), since the cap is 15 I like this a lot.
If you want to look at generating ability scores via cards, I recommend checking out Far Distant Future Publishing's Creating Characters with CARDS Instead of Dice (affiliate link), particularly since it's a PWYW (Pay What You Want) product.Edit: instead of rolling, drawing cards might be less annoying.
All you need is an Ace as 1 and one card you treat as 0 and Cards from 3 to 6.
This is simple and cool. Even cooler if no score totals can equal another.3A. No Duplicates (score range 9 - 15)
Roll 4d6 and drop lowest, but no die result can occur more than once. For example, if you rolled 2, 3, 3, 6 you would reroll one of the 3's, but you cannot roll a 2, 3, or 6 on the reroll; if you do, keep rolling until you get a 1, 4, or 5.
Then you have seven possible arrays:This is simple and cool. Even cooler if no score totals can equal another.
Which is great if you don't want to roll dice... but rolling d6s was part of the point in the OP anyway.Standard array or point buy. No muss, no fuss, and everyone is starting from the same place.
At that point just roll a d6 and take the corresponding one of those rolls is way less effort.Then you have seven possible arrays:
15,14,13,12,11,9
15,14,13,12,11,10
15,14,13,12,10,9
15,14,13,11,10,9
15,14,12,11,10,9
15,13,12,11,10,9
14,13,12,11,10,9