What stat method do you use??

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I use whatever I feel fits the campaign, though I normally go with 4d6 drop the lowest in stead of Point Buy. Point Buy is good for ome things...but really, if you can rely on the randomness of dice for hitting things, why not for you abilities?

 

[babomb]

What my group used to do was choose between 4d6 drop lowest, arrange to taste or what I called "Non-standard array." We wrote up all of the stat blocks that one could possibly get from 29 or 30 point stat buy with 3 odd and 3 even stats and no more than 2 stats the same. A player could pick any of these and arrange to taste. (I stole the idea from someone on the boards, about 2 years ago.) As I recall, only one player ever used this, as everyone else (myself included) felt it was more fun to roll stats.

 

[Zappo]

The above method is a "harsh" method; typical characters will end up with +3, +4, or +5 total attribute modifiers, whereas 25 point buy generates characters with, what, around +10 to +12 total attribute modifiers?

Umm, assuming you spend your points in the most efficient way possible, you get a +6. When I say "efficient" there, I mean so as to get the highest possible total modifiers, but in reality, since players generally want at least a 15 or 16 in their primary stat, most characters end up with a total of +5 or +4. I've made a character that totalled +3 once (I wanted an 18 at all costs). So, it isn't any kinder than your method really.

IIRC, 4d6 drop low on average creates stats worth 30 points and will rarely produce stats worth 25 points or below, so I have absolutely no idea of where Grishnak's gripes come from. Characters created with 25 point buy are far, far from perfect; they almost always have at least one stat below 10 and they almost never have an 18.

I can see a case being made for the fun of rolling, ok, and I can understand the fear of seeing cookie-cutter characters (though in 3 years of using 25 point buy, I still have to see two characters with the same stats)... but point-buy characters being more powerful? Not under standard rules, no.

 

[Zerakon]

Umm, assuming you spend your points in the most efficient way possible, you get a +6.

My mistake. Not sure what I was thinking, we don't even use point buy in my group, we use 4d6 and I meant that my 5x3d6/15-X method was harsher than the "standard" 4d6 which generates characters with much better scores. I wasn't attempting to compare the power of point-buy vs. rolled-up characters.

Anyway, the whole point of my method and why I wanted to point out the details because it doesn't fit into the poll choices is that it combines what my players and I see as the best of both worlds of rolling (rolling is fun and can create quirky characters, especially when rolling 3d6) and point buy (nobody ends up with an unplayable character).

 

[Gnarlo]

I've always used rolling in the past, but my next game will be point buy Unfortunately, with the multitiude of computer chargen programs out there, it's not hard to end up with a seriously out of balance character if you are willing to hit the reroll button often enough. Which two of my current group did, "rolling" characters with 3 and 4 18's respectively, and no score under 14... I let them keep them, but it can be a task keeping them challenged while not killing off the other three... let's just say the two of them get singled out by the big bads a lot while the mooks go after the rest of the group.

 

[Zappo]

I've always used rolling in the past, but my next game will be point buy Unfortunately, with the multitiude of computer chargen programs out there, it's not hard to end up with a seriously out of balance character if you are willing to hit the reroll button often enough. Which two of my current group did, "rolling" characters with 3 and 4 18's respectively, and no score under 14... I let them keep them, but it can be a task keeping them challenged while not killing off the other three... let's just say the two of them get singled out by the big bads a lot while the mooks go after the rest of the group.

Before computer chargens, what prevented them from just arbitrarily deciding their scores and then telling you that they rolled them fairly?

 

[Wormwood]

My gorup hasn't used dice since the early '90's.

Can't think of a single reason to go back.

 

[Gnarlo]

Before computer chargens, what prevented them from just arbitrarily deciding their scores and then telling you that they rolled them fairly?

A peculiar sense of honesty, I think. Both of them are very honest people; no one has ever seen them fudge a die roll at the table, and one of them last week pointed out a modifier to a roll I had forgotten that caused his character to fail a save. It would never occur to either of them I believe to sit and roll scores of sets of abilities to get high scores, I think it was just the ease of doing it by pushing a button that went to their heads...

If I'd seen their sheets and stat scores before we had played the first game, I probably would have disallowed what they'd done and they'd have been fine with it; as it was, it was 3 or 4 sessions into the campaign before I realized what was amiss and I didn't want to scrap the game; keeping things balanced is a challenge, but doable.

Plus, I've been looking for an excuse to try point buy, and this gives me a good one.

 

[Grishnak]

IIRC, 4d6 drop low on average creates stats worth 30 points and will rarely produce stats worth 25 points or below, so I have absolutely no idea of where Grishnak's gripes come from. Characters created with 25 point buy are far, far from perfect; they almost always have at least one stat below 10 and they almost never have an 18.

I can see a case being made for the fun of rolling, ok, and I can understand the fear of seeing cookie-cutter characters (though in 3 years of using 25 point buy, I still have to see two characters with the same stats)... but point-buy characters being more powerful? Not under standard rules, no.

With 25 points whats roughly the sverage stats you'll get out of them? Then take into account the fact that dice rolling there's a chance of low stats whereas with point buy you'll never get a low stat! (really low if dm makes you keep whatever you roll) So that in it's self says that a point buy system in the long run will always be more powerful stat wise.

 

[Ti-bob]

Stat generated with cards

I developed a simple and inovative (!) method to generating stat using a deck of paying cards. This method combines the best of 2 worlds: fairness of point-buy and the "quirkness" of dices.

1. Makes a deck of 12 cards with 2 four, 2 five, 2 six, 2 seven, 2 eight and 2 nines.*

2. Deals randomly 6 stacks of 2 cards each.

3. You can to exchange any 2 cards, once.

4. Assigns the scores to each stat as you like.

* You can to change the distribution the distibution of cards if you want another average of scores. This one gives a means of 13 with a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 18.