D&D 5E The Philosophy Behind Randomized and Standardized Ability Scores

[Yardiff]

So I thought I would try this and see what I got:
4 tries until first 2x 15 and
11,17,15,13,12,12
3 tries:
10,15,15,9,16,9
2 tries:
17,15,13,11,13,14
3 tries:
16,11,14,9,14,18

Interesting, Did Colville say, place in order or rearrange to suit?

Arrange as wanted.

 

[Yardiff]

Nice try, but math don’t cheat, if you don’t put a minimum you will eventually roll the two 15+ and a bunch of 3. It may not happen at your table but a world wide used method will get it.

Unclear what this reply is about. I was just letting tetrasodium know that in the video he was talking about from Matt Colville, Matt used 4d6 drop lowest not the 3d6.

 

[Krachek]

Unclear what this reply is about. I was just letting tetrasodium know that in the video he was talking about from Matt Colville, Matt used 4d6 drop lowest not the 3d6.

Even if you roll 4d6 drop lowest you can still achieve a 3. Rarer but still possible.
So unless you put an explicit rule for lowest score, you can still roll 15,15,3,3,3,3!
And should also buy a lottery ticket!

 

[Jack Daniel]

3d6 in order is where it's at for me, but (1) I prefer to use a variation on the Swords & Wizardry White Box table, where modifiers hardly ever exceed ±1, so the difference between (say) a Strength 3 warrior and a Strength 18 warrior who are fighting shoulder-to-shoulder is two points of hit and damage at most; and (2) I run old-school, which presupposes that as the campaign goes on, each player will eventually have a stable of differently-leveled characters to choose from, suitable for tackling a wide variety of differently-leveled adventures.

The idea that if you roll poorly, you get "stuck" with your poor stats for a whole, entire campaign is a concept thoroughly wedded to traditional, single-character, plotline-driven, and OC-centric modern play-styles.

 

[Yardiff]

Even if you roll 4d6 drop lowest you can still achieve a 3. Rarer but still possible.
So unless you put an explicit rule for lowest score, you can still roll 15,15,3,3,3,3!
And should also buy a lottery ticket!

I believe Colville had a minimum of 8. Not sure if you reroll lower then an 8 or made it an eight. For myself if someone rolled 2 or more 3's I'd have them start over.

 

[Maxperson]

I mention this because I think that this is often given short shrift in discussions of ability score generation- not the effect on a singular PC, but on the effect on the table. If someone gets really really low scores, and someone gets really really high scores, what will happen? Is this going to be seen as good fun- an opportunity for memorable characters? Or is this going to be viewed by the players as unfun and unfair? The type of players and the reaction you get will most likely determine the best methods of character generation.

I would go so far as to say that this sense of fairness is what has likely driven the adoption of standardized ability scores over time (point buy, array). Even some randomized methods allow for this sense of fairness (such as allowing players to bid on scores at an auction, or to chose among a number of random scores).

Anyway, I wanted to put this out for general discussion- the social and table aspect of ability score generation. What do you think? Do you consider this, and if so (or if not), why?

I think it comes down to table personalities. My group doesn't really care if they roll higher or lower than others at the table, so it's really not a concern of ours. However, I know a few players and I've seen many here who do view the kind of equity arrays give as very important.

The method of stat generation that I use is assign two stats to roll 5d6-2L, two stats to roll 4d6-L, and two stats to roll 3d6. They kinda sorta get to place stats for high intelligence as a wizard for example, by assigning a 5d6-2L to it, but as you note above with the old UA method, you can still roll poorly that way or highly on a 3d6. I do want them to be able to play the class they want, though, so I allow one swap of a pair of numbers. I also have a floor of 72 points, so if the total stats don't add up to 72, they roll a d6 and assign a +1 to that stat(usual stat order) and continue to do so until they are up to 72. Max of 18 of course.

 

[Maxperson]

I believe Colville had a minimum of 8. Not sure if you reroll lower then an 8 or made it an eight. For myself if someone rolled 2 or more 3's I'd have them start over.

He has them re-roll if lower than 8. I watched part of the first episode of his game and saw them make characters.

 

[Lanefan]

I like how The Black Hack does it: you roll 1d20 and if the result is ABOVE your current stat, it goes up by 1 point. That way it gets harder the higher your stat already is.

Interesting idea. How often is such a roll given? (not familiar with The Black Hack at all)

 

[Krachek]

Score improvement for those who like to roll but don’t like risk.

Use standard array or use point buy.

Then choose one option:

If you have a 15, you can roll six times 4d6 drop lowest and try to improve the 15. If you fail you keep the 15.

you can pick a racial feat for free.

You improve your two lowest score by 2.

You can turn a 13 into a 14

Using the standard array you can finish with

15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 and a racial feat
18, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8, high roll
17, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8
16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8
15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 no luck
15, 14, 13, 12, 12, 10, safe play
15, 14, 14, 12, 10, 8, safe play

 

[Oofta]

Like others, the issue I have with a lot of options presented is that they're almost all "safe". You can't really end up with a "bad" PC. You can end up with something close to what point buy gets you or a PC that has sky-high scores. If sky-high scores are what you're after why not just increase the point buy budget and allow purchasing ability scores up to 18? Use D&D 3.5's point buy method with 32 points (high powered) will give everyone an exceptional PC. Random? Use the list I had back on the first page.

For me, I like not starting out with super high scores. It give me a sense of growth and accomplishment, a feeling that PC is improving in multiple ways. We did try higher scores for our first 5E campaign that my wife ran we used the aforementioned "high powered" option but ended up kind of regretting it. I like playing off the fact that my paladin while strong and has a charisma a bit above average but kind of a klutz.

Of course YMMV and all that.