What's your highest total L1 pre-racial stat sum?

[MarauderX]

FAIRNESS?

Yeah, I agree it's kinda useless in the game. There is usually no degree of fairness once you choose a class anyway, so stats, being the foundation of each class, are lost in the mix unless you are comparing a rogue 2/cleric 1 to a rogue 2/cleric 1.

Also there is that fairness of XP too, and usually the PCs vary so much in level, let alone XP, that it's hard to keep it 'fair and equal' across the board for all of the PCs.

So why be so picky about stats? I would hate to be the weakling in a group and I know there are some players who just couldn't deal with that sort of inferiority complex that would develop. I like the point buy system and the dice rolling as a player, but what effects a PC more IMO is having differences in XP that hinders the party from escalating at the same rate. Stats don't play as an important role (roll? ) as compared to leveling. Having a 3rd level party with a 2nd level wizard Int=18 is weaker than a 3rd level party and a 3rd level wizard with Int=15, and the same goes for the rest of the stats too IMO.

So I am not concerned about fairness in the game, as it will all vary after a few sessions anyway, and worrying about tweaking out a character's stats is one of the lesser of my concerns.

 

[Lazybones]

I like point buy.

In my current PnP game, the DM used 4d6/drop, although he's let me use 25pb for my most recent character. My first character had a total cumulative stat modifier of +1 (with a few negative stats in there to counter his 15 and 12).

You can say it doesn't make much difference (and the character's been fun to play regardless), but most of the other players in this game had characters with cumulative stat modifiers of +3 to +9 (some hot rollers in the group), and it does have a significant impact on effectiveness in the game. Get unlucky and roll some low stats (even combined with one outstanding one), and your options in terms of character evolution/multiclassing are suddenly severely limited. In the above case I made a cleric/rogue, but he's not going to go very far in cleric levels with 12 Wisdom.

 

[Norfleet]

Don't suppose you'd be willing to share that technique...? You know, for academic purposes.

--Impeesa--

Sure. The technique involve speed. What you do is you quickly load the dice between your fingers, and then launch them with a flat sweep of the wrist, hand angled slightly upwards. This produces the characteristic rattle required of die rolling, but due to the physical shape of the die, greatly increases the odds of the die landing with the desired face up. Dice further up on the incline should be rotated one step towards the back, particularly if you're casting many dice at a time, such as for a 10d6 sneak attack, so if casting with the right hand, for example, roll the desired facing (6) counterclockwise. If you have TWF/Ambidexterity feats, you can perform this in both hands at once, increasing the dice bandwidth.

It is very important that the dice rattle. If they simply plop and skate, your casting angle is too low. This is why d6 are actually preferred in this technique over d4, although nobody will be terribly suspicious if a d4 skates.

With practice, it becomes trivial to cast 3d6 and know exactly when to roll the dice. The hard part is learning how to speedload the dice such that it doesn't look like you're trying something really strange. With only a little practice, you can get very favorable, above-average results from 3d6 every time. Just throw the 4th d6 from the palm, and let it land however it wishes. Once you have mastered the technique privately, when performing it in front of a crowd, chant in tongues for dramatic effect. Muhuhahahaha.

Having the Quicker than the Eye feat helps a lot, too.

With practice, you can be the dread scourge of sneak attacks, fireballs, shortswords, rapiers, light maces, halfspears, greatswords, and other d6-grade weapons.

And won't it drive your group absolutely nuts, when you can max your hp every level, and have more hp than the party fighter? With my d6 casting technique, you can turn any 1d6 weapon into a avg 6 weapon, which nicely outclasses a d8's avg 4.5, and a 2d6 weapon into a happy, friendly, avg 12 weapon.

It'll also make you an absolute fiend in Monopoly, and nobody will suspect a thing, since you won't need a 6. Guarantee your acquisition of all the major properties early on, and never pay rent unless you want to. Big hit at parties, source of major cursing and frustration as you effortlessly skate the board, missing all of the "random" pitfalls every time. Figure out how this applies to any other game, too.

A tad bit of slightly off-topic info...

The smart gambler who knows the method he speaks of will just try to get one of his dice to come up "6" and will let the other die fall where it may so to speak.

He will then maintain a small bet on the pass bar and bet most of his money on the "field" as he has a greater chance of return for this bet.

Note that while this method is certainly not enouraged by casino's, they do not disallow it either.

Cedric

My strategy was simple. Find a suitable table, bet it all, win, and get the hell of the Dodge. They couldn't prove any cheating, because there was none, but they didn't want me to stay there anymore, either.