Which 16 array would you recomend

[the Jester]

I've never liked random rolling for the wild variations amongst players that it introduces. One set of random roles should not determine the path of an entire PC career.

4e's rolling system suggests that, if your total ability bonus is outside of the range of +4 to +8, you throw the stats away and roll again, so the "wild variations" problem is minimized.

4e is set up primarily for point-buy, not for rolling, tnough rolling is still allowed, of course.

People seem to say this a lot, and I've never seen anything to back it up. Rolling is one of the methods of character generation laid out in the PH. NOTHING sets point buy up as the primary method except for the preferences of a lot of groups. I don't know why this assertion annoys me so much, but damn does it!

 

[Nifft]

I seem to recall some really cool hybrid randomness methods (including one with a deck of cards, and one that used the idea of "draft" to assign stat priority before doing the random bit).

Anyone remember what those were?

- - -

IMHO 4e is a much "tighter" game than 3.x, and it seems to me that monster designers assume PCs with a narrow range of attack values.

Cheers, -- N

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Nope, never used anything but dice back in the day in our neck of the woods

The problem with rolling is you really do get a LOT of variation. I've seen some pretty buffy rolled PCs. You get a couple 18s or three 16s and you can suddenly not only meet pretty much any old feat prereq but you can do some fairly significant optimizing. A character like that will clock in at a power level pretty much level + 1 vs a standard point buy. You could throw out the outlying stat sets, but then again you could just use point buy and probably get the same numbers. At that point the question is if you've gained anything.

Rolling does have a certain old school appeal to it, but I also remember a lot of badness involved with people playing stuff they didn't like and wimpy boring characters with 4 12's a 14 and and a 9. Meanwhile the guy down the table has an 18 STR and a 16 CON or something. And don't even get me started on rolling hit points. What do you do with a 2 hit point first level fighter?

 

[ourchair]

4e is set up primarily for point-buy, not for rolling, tnough rolling is still allowed, of course.

I agree. Rolling seems to really throw the particular balances that the system was designed for.

I've never liked random rolling for the wild variations amongst players that it introduces. One set of random roles should not determine the path of an entire PC career.

Truth.

However, random rolling has a certain fun to it. The best way, IMHO, to negate the wild power variations between players is to maintain a very tight bracket of pluses.

I know that the source books have specific recommendations about power levels, but I think tighter is better. Instead of +4 to +8 (PHB, pg.18), I take the highest set of pluses the players roll and then use that as the basis for the stat plus minimum.

In my case, I rolled +15 (18,17,16,16,14,10) and the DM decided a minimum of +10. That means even the weakest array would be behind by 33% tops. We ended up with a +12 as our weakest set, which only puts him behind by 20%. The recommendation of the PHB means that the weak roller would be behind in power by a whopping 50%. If I was ruling, I'd have made the minimum of +12 from the +15.

What this stat generation ruling means is that power levels are balanced, but 'wild' stats are possible -- Imagine a party with one 16,14,12,10,8,18 and a 16,16,15,6,12,10 -- and crazy characters can still happen with rewarding possiblities for roleplaying those stats.

 

[eamon]

The problem with rolling is you really do get a LOT of variation. I've seen some pretty buffy rolled PCs. You get a couple 18s or three 16s and you can suddenly not only meet pretty much any old feat prereq but you can do some fairly significant optimizing. A character like that will clock in at a power level pretty much level + 1 vs a standard point buy. You could throw out the outlying stat sets, but then again you could just use point buy and probably get the same numbers. At that point the question is if you've gained anything.

This is in direct opposition with my experience. Since 4e started, we've played the vast majority of games with the house rule that you may roll, and then choose point buy if you don't like the result. Only few people actually roll attractive results anyhow. One character had an 18/18/16. The difference was not noticeable. In practice, it's nice to meet those prereqs, but there's enough other options that you're not gimped for missing them. The to-hit+damage of extremely high rolls will not be better than those of plain point-buy characters. Some exceptionally MAD characters will greatly gain in strength - but generally, those were weak beforehand anyhow.

The primary stat matters in actual gameplay. The secondary is neat to have, and can matter a lot for some characters (particularly if it influences AC) - these will be the options chosen by those with lucky rolls). The rest might as well be fluff. High stats look cool. They help only a little, however.

There's a thread about whether an 18/19/20 is required - well, if you think it's not absolutely required then this kind of detail (a higher secondary/tertiary stat) is really lost in the noise. At worst, you'll get a few novel builds that wouldn't have been possible otherwise; say, a two-weapon ranger with both dex+wis or whatnot.

Balance stuff you do notice are things like having Iron armbands, and bloodclaw pre-errata. At least one non-rolled character had those and noticeably outshone the mega-high-roll characters.

Put if this way: If you think a 16 primary stat is playable compared to a 20, then those secondary/tertiary differences are trivial.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What this stat generation ruling means is that power levels are balanced, but 'wild' stats are possible -- Imagine a party with one 16,14,12,10,8,18 and a 16,16,15,6,12,10 -- and crazy characters can still happen with rewarding possiblities for roleplaying those stats.

Both of those stat arrays are possible post-racial using point buy. That's my point, once you apply a narrow enough bracket to the rolls you just might as well buy your PCs with points. I get the nostalgia factor, I started playing D&D in 1974 or 75. I also remember writing out SHEETS of paper with 100 "Roll 3d6 in order" stat sets and cherry picking the ones that actually looked at all interesting to play. The DM made us play ALL of them eventually that weren't hopeless, but at least we got some choice in what to be that day. I think the charm went out of rolling when it turned into stuff like "4d6 3 highest, take the top 6 of 12, arrange any old way". It just stops being interesting when you only have to pick the best rolls, but if you don't then you always have someone stuck with a junk character. Point buy feels a little vanilla, but it actually works pretty good and if someone wants to play with a couple of 8's they can. I think the range 8-20 is wide enough.

 

[ourchair]

Both of those stat arrays are possible post-racial using point buy. That's my point, once you apply a narrow enough bracket to the rolls you just might as well buy your PCs with points.

Actually, I made up those figures deliberately lower, so yes, they are point buyable. In the case of my game with the +15s, those are stats obtained pre-racials.

As for the "nostalgia" factor of rolling, it's funny you say that because I only started playing pen and paper RPGs this year. (Despite having wanted to play for over a decade and owning my own thoroughly unused rule books for a while.)

Also, you're right 4d6, 3x pick best does seem counterintuitive since it guarantees some decent stats ALWAYS. But strangely, I'm surprised how LOW people have rolled. I tend to be a high roller, but one of my players is a veteran who always rolls badly (but plays well).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, people always remember the good rolls and forget the bad, particularly with ability scores I think. I can remember several really high stat AD&D 1e characters I played. I don't remember much about the ones with the low stats. Actually the LEAST memorable were the typical ones with nothing but a bunch of mediocre numbers. Unless the character happened to do something really memorable it tended to be quickly set aside and forgotten.

The game has evolved a LOT though since 1e. With the vast number of interesting options you have these days characters are always a lot more distinctive and raw scores don't matter so much. Ironically that means its not so important to roll them anymore either.

The only thing I miss is the guy with the 18 STR and 4 INT. Those were fun characters. The thing is they were fun because most characters were bland. In my group with 4e I find there are few, if any, bland characters. They probably have "typical stats" for the race/class they are, but beyond that they're pretty interesting. Using the 4e standard arrays in 1e would be pretty blah. Different game with different emphasis I guess.

 

[Garmorn]

My house rule for rolling is a hybrid. I let each player roll a set. wrote them all done the party picked one set. That set became the standard array for the campaign. It meant that each campaign had a different power level and challenges.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I also like to roll for stats...

but i have use the character builder to make sure everyoone has roughly the same point buy cost... reroll as long as needed...