What is the standard ability score set? Are most games playing too high?

[Doctor DM]

oh man, my current PC's are so overpowered. I think the average is +14.

But we have fun, I just use superpowered opponents.

Why wait for 20th level to be epic?

 

[frankthedm]

two main DMs in our group do 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12. Quite strong, but I prefer an even spread rather than the "18's and 8's" mentality that point buy induces in our group. Though in thier defence it was more of a 16, 16, 16, 10, 10, 10.

 

[Emirikol]

If 25 is the OFFICIAL D&D standard, I wonder how many people play lower stats. I mean, a 15 point buy get's you what?

14, 14, 11, 8, 8, 8 = +1
13,10,10,10,10,10 = +1

Anybody ever tried that? I hear the "heroes are supposed to be heroic" argument, so now I guess we're lucky that we have a standard to find out the border between "heroic" and something else.

jh
Do stats make a character heroic?

 

[Crothian]

No, stats do not make a character heroic. I have ran a 15 point buy game. I once played a character that was a weak 15 point buy (3 10s and 3 11s). Actions make heroes not stats on a sheet of paper.

 

[Victim]

28.58

I don't think that was including the automatic rerolls for certain sets of stats, so the actual average produced by the PHB die rolling system is higher.

 

[Vocenoctum]

You must be one of those meenie DM's

I'm sure my players think so sometimes.

I suppose it's been tradition to actually have "higher" stats because there never was any kind of standard until 3.x right?

I think higher stats were more of a thing in previous editions, just because lower stuff didn't really "do" anything. in 3, it's all incremental, so it's not a big deal. In the case of my group, it was mostly because of one game where all the players were 32 points and people seemed to think that was "normal". For myself, it diminished the point of having high att's if everything was above average.

Same way we stopped doing random rolls, everyone would want to keep rerolling until they rivaled whoever rolled best, and it got tedious.

Nowadays, people seem to think the game requires 28+ and act like martyrs if you're punishing them with 25. The difference barely matters in reality, but oh well.

 

[kenobi65]

I think higher stats were more of a thing in previous editions, just because lower stuff didn't really "do" anything.

That's a good point. For most stats, in 1E, you needed (IIRC) a 15 or a 16 before you got any bonus at all. (OTOH, IIRC, you also didn't get penalties on low stats until you got down to around 5 or 6...)

 

[RedFox]

I either go with two sets of 4d6, drop lowest or (if the dice cheater is in the group) I have everyone use the Elite Array.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

My self-created point-buy system -- linear, unlike official point-buy -- allows creation of PCs of from +6 to +8 total bonus, depending upon where points are allocated. That's where I'm confortable as a player, as well, though my character in the FR game I play is god-like.

(+14 total bonus. No, I didn't roll the stats; my DM claimed to. They were 15, 13, 16, 12, 18, 12. Two stat-bumps since. The amazing thing is that he "rolled" +12 for two other PCs, too.)

 

[Jdvn1]

My point buy games are always 32+. I like my heroes heroic.

Ditto. My players currently have 36.

We started with 2 players and they needed a power boost.