D&D 5E What do you consider "good" ability scores?

[le Redoutable]

Yeah, I can get behind this.

The two 17s make it solid while the 7 makes it playable from an entertainment standpoint.

For any non-Cleric give me prime-stat 18, Wisdom 7, and the rest somewhere in between; and I'm good to rock all night.

all stats should have their utility, regardless of class !

 

[Lanefan]

To the actual question:

One score 14 or above and the sum of bonuses should be +1 and above.

That was actually the 3e requirement for a playable character (which we actually had one in our group that made it to 11th level,

Facetious question, but were you in the 3e game I played in? I don't recall seeing you there...

Because I played that character, and she might have been the best one I've ever had in any game.

She started at raw 1st with one 15 and nothing else of note (and one 7), net starting bonus of +1 or +2 (I forget now), and made it to 11th level in a fairly lethal campaign.

 

[Lanefan]

all stats should have their utility, regardless of class !

Yep; and the utility of low Wisdom is that I can make the character fun, entertaining, and memorable.

And fun and entertainment is why we do this, right?

 

[le Redoutable]

Yep; and the utility of low Wisdom is that I can make the character fun, entertaining, and memorable.

And fun and entertainment is why we do this, right?

I used to be unlucky, and it was nothing appealing confronted to lucky players ( yes yes you speak about characters not players )

 

[Hussar]

For me, I probably wouldn't play the fourth one, just because I'm not really good at "joke" characters. I don't really enjoy playing them. The other three would be no problems though.

In 5e, I pretty much always just stick to standard array. Makes a solid character, nothing too strong or too weak, a good all rounder.

As a DM, I adore players who do the point buy and the 16 16 16, 8 8 8 array or whatever it is. Just makes my life so easy to challenge them. I just have to do a fair array of challenges and it's bound to hit that weakness often enough to make it sting. Like that adventure I ran where the cave in required a 10 Str to be able to shift the rubble. Oh yeah Mr Dex Archer? Not so useful now are you? You get to wait while the rest of the group digs you out.

Dump starting when I'm DMing just warms my evil DM's heart.

 

[le Redoutable]

two points here :
do you use Luck to influence Dice rolls ?
( I used to refer to Randomness in spite of )
( euuh the other point I miss out )

 

[CreamCloud0]

What makes the first set appealing to me is that your character isn't going to be 'average'. They're going to stand out and do things most people can only dream of.

Player characters are already above average, that second array is already enough to build a great sorcerer or warlock, priest or dex paladin, a ranger archer, bard or rogue, the only classes that would really struggle with those stats is probably a fighter or barbarian
I guess it’s not my place to say don’t have your power fantasy I just don’t get that need myself, rather an interesting character with flaws than an overpowered one IMO.

 

[le Redoutable]

what if you're a Super yourself and the Rules permit only " above-Average " Characters
( btw, to which stat would belong the Luck flag ? )

 

[Corinnguard]

I think it's more like a Goldilocks thing. Not too low, not too high, but just right.

 

[Hussar]

Not to dive off into the whole die rolling chargen thing but, this is exactly why I don't die roll characters anymore. You've got four characters here. Normal baseline 5e Standard Array is 72 points if you add all the stats together. Three of these characters are over 80 and one is 89. One is lower than 72 - that fourth set.

But, my point is, shouldn't die rolled characters be far closer to 72 than that? Three of these aren't just a little bit more, they're a LOT more.

I guess I just don't get the appeal.