Which method do you use to determine ability scores?

[Wormwood]

30-point NWN style.

I *hate* rolling for ability scores. It never made sense, and never will.

 

[Drawmack]

In the past, we've rolled 4D6 six times, reroll any 1s, throw out the low die, arrange as desired.

I think in the future we might try some sort of point buy system.

Wow allow me to do a little math here
4^6 = 4096 possible combinations,
Eliminating ones = 1024 combinations ranging from 6 - 18,

This is a pretty high powered method.

 

[Mark Chance]

For my characters, I usually just write down the stats I want the character to have based on my concept for that character. If anyone asks, I tell them. No secrets.

As a GM, I don't particularly care how my players come up with their characters' stats. For the current campaign, I asked each player to show up for the first game session with his character already made, so no telling what happened.

 

[Drawmack]

I allow the players to choose between roll 4d6 7 times, drop the lowest die each time and drop the lowest row then assign as you like and 35 point buy system.

If you roll and your stats are less then 32 points on the point buy system you may adjust them until they reach 32 points on the point buy system.

This way - there are no rerolls. Those who roll take a chance on being slightly underpowered, or overpowered, to those who just point buy from the start. Normall in a party of 6 I'll have 4 who rolled their stats without adjustment. 1 who did 35 point buy and 1 who rolled horribly and adjusted their scores to a 32 point buy. Usually have one overpowered and one under powered character. The memorable one is usually the underpowered character.

 

[shilsen]

Currently using a straight 80 points (not point buy) to divide among the six abilities.

 

[Desdichado]

I like to use the default array, arranged to taste, and then give three one to one points to each character to use however they want. In practice, in most games I've played, we've either done point buy (varies by campaign) or the standard 4d6 roll.

 

[KDLadage]

I use playing cards. Seriously.

I have a deck of cards that have 18 cards (three per stat) and total to 72 (average stat for a PC is thus, 12). My current mix of cards looks like this:

1 - x1 card
2 - x2 cards
3 - x3 cards
4 - x6 cards
5 - x3 cards
6 - x2 cards
7 - x1 card

Now, this does mean it is possible to end up with a stat being rolled at 19 (or as low as 5). But in the end, the stats for all of the characters average out the same.

I have the player deal the cards out into six piles, face down. Then, they pick any of them and turn them over. Looking at the total, they assign the number to a stat -- then, they turn over another pile and assign it to a remaining stat and so on until the final pile is turned over and is assigned to what-ever stat remains.

I have other decks I have put together for low, medium and high powered NPCs just in case I do not have a set of pre-concieved stats for them.

 

[Cor Azer]

I generally prefer point-buy systems (28-32 point spread) but my current face-to-face campaign was done using the standard rolling method because several of my players wanted to chuck the dice for the characters again.

It's working out pretty good; there are a several low ability scores in the game (9 or lower), but about an equal number of high ones (17 or higher) and most are on the same characters.

 

[Henry]

Depends on the campaign. We vary it up many times just for variety's sake. The running favorite now is:

4d6 (drop lowest) 7 times, take the best 6 scores.

We've also used point buy (from 25 to 36), 4d6 standard (our very first 3E game we did this for nostalgia), and even at one game the DM rolled 20 sets of stats, and we all rolled d20's to see what set of stats we got!

 

[diaglo]

3d6 in order. but i prefer OD&D(1974)