D&D 5E What is your current way to roll stats

[Jim Williams]

D&D DMG 3.5 Method 5: Organic Characters

My preference is for method 5, Organic Characters, from the D&D 3.5 DMG.

"Roll 4d6 six times, discarding the lowest die each time. Place in order...as rolled. Reroll any one ability score of your choice, taking the new roll if it's higher. Then switch any two ability scores. This method allows some choice but doesn't let a player have all her ability scores exactly where she wants them. A character might have to learn to cope with unwanted clumsiness (just as in real life), or she may have a personal talent that isn't usual for a member of her class (such as a high Strength score for a sorcerer)."

 

[psychophipps]

4d6k3 seven times. Drop the lowest. Arrange to preference.

 

[EldonGoodbarrel]

I have them roll 4d6 seven times, dropping the lowest scores.
Arranging them however they want.

 

[Miladoon]

My preference is for method 5, Organic Characters, from the D&D 3.5 DMG.

"Roll 4d6 six times, discarding the lowest die each time. Place in order...as rolled. Reroll any one ability score of your choice, taking the new roll if it's higher. Then switch any two ability scores. This method allows some choice but doesn't let a player have all her ability scores exactly where she wants them. A character might have to learn to cope with unwanted clumsiness (just as in real life), or she may have a personal talent that isn't usual for a member of her class (such as a high Strength score for a sorcerer)."

A sound way to add variety to the randomness. By design, 5E has a place for unusual characters. A sorcerer with a high strength is doable.

 

[Dit464]

Our table came to the consensus that a person can roll a character's stats or your total points must equal 69 (standard array 15,15,15,8,8,8 or equivalent)
Example roll a D20 7 times and you can toss out one of the rolls (usually the lowest one you get) when I rolled my most recent character, a Human Variant Ranger I got 19,17,16,16,14,10 and the roll i threw out was a 9. So I got lucky and was able to have max Dex at lvl 1. Then again I have seen roll sets that have been 1,1,1,6,11,9,7 so this can be a double edged sword at times. In remarkably bad cases like this we tend to allow them to change their stat rolling method.

Even that being said our most recent game every character so far have rolled their stats and have gotten decent stats, the Goliath Fighter in the group was able to get an unnatural 20 for his Str stat, although the roll he threw out was a 4.

 

[Miladoon]

Added a new method recently. LINK

 

[manduck]

My group does 4d6, drop the lowest. Roll six times and assign as desired. You get one set of rolls. Then you can choose between what you rolled or the standard array. That way if you don't roll well, you have the array to fall back on. We were going to just use the standard array at first. Though suddenly most of the group wanted to roll stats. So we compromised. It worked out pretty well, over all.

I've toyed with the idea of each person at the table rolling 4d6, drop lowest, for one roll. Then taking six of those rolls from the group and making it the stat array for the entire group. Take the 6 highest if you have more than six or have someone roll extra if you don't have six players. That way everyone gets to roll and everyone ends up even with ability scores. If you want to really mix it up and have more than 6 people, take the three highest and the three lowest. It was just an idea to mix up character creation though. I haven't tried it yet to see what my group thinks. I also have an unusually large group. There can be nine of us at the table, if everyone can make it. So something like this could keep the entire group engaged at the same time and get them generating characters at a similar pace. Also lets me keep track of what's being rolled, in case anyone is tempted to cheat. If everyone at the group just starts making characters, I find I get pulled in different directions as the GM. I could be helping with stats for one player and then spells for another or answering race/class questions. If I can find a way to keep everyone on the same page at the same time, it makes things go more smoothly for me. We usually do a session 0 with character gen and introductions. I'm not sure if this would actually help keep things even and running smoothly though, as I haven't tested it yet.

 

[Plaguescarred]

4d6 drop the lowest arrange as you wish.

 

[werecorpse]

Roll 2 sets and choose one.
3d6 in order, replace one dice result (lowest number) of each 3d6 roll (if less than 4) with a 4.
this results in a range of 6-18 but getting a 17 or 18 still needs to be rolled naturally.

if I was to allow rearrange I would let you do one direct swap.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

One of the earlier editions (AD&D 2e?) had a method of starting with 8 in every score, rolling 7 6-sided dice, and adding the values of each die to ability scores. You didn't total the dice, however, you added each die result to one score.

For example, rolling 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 6.
You might go STR 8+6+2 = 16, DEX 8+2 = 10, CON 8+3+4=15, INT 8, WIS 8, CHA 8+3+1=12.

Has anyone tried this, or similar, in 5E?