D&D 5E Why I Am Starting to Prefer 4d6 Drop the Lowest Over the Default Array.

[Satyrn]

So, what this thread looks like to me is this:

Us: We prefer rolling dice for reasons.
Them: We prefer point buy for reasons.
Do This Loop {
Us: Your reasons don't sway our preference. We prefer rolling dice for reasons.
Them: Your reasons don't sway our preference. We prefer point buy for reasons.
} For A While

 

[Soul Stigma]

So, what this thread looks like to me is this:

Us: We prefer rolling dice for reasons.
Them: We prefer point buy for reasons.
Do This Loop {
Us: Your reasons don't sway our preference. We prefer rolling dice for reasons.
Them: Your reasons don't sway our preference. We prefer point buy for reasons.
} For A While

LOL I think you just summed up the entire thread.


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[FormerlyHemlock]

Yep, with point buy sorts of generation, you bring the fairly fully formed character. With die rolling, you reveal the tools that will lead to the character

Rolling stats reminds me of what they say about sculpting: you look into the rock and cut away everything that isn't part of the statue.

 

[Lanefan]

When you go to a standard blockbuster non-comedy action movie, who is the focus of the action? The normal Joes? Nope. It's James Bond, Jason Bourne, Wonder Woman. People who are just plain better at what they do because they are faster/stronger/smarter than the average person. Those are the people we aspire to be, the icons we want to imitate.

James Bond, Jason Bourne, Wonder Woman - all are in effect one-person armies, and hardly a good comparision to a D&D adventuring party. Unless, of course, your aim in the game really is to be the one big fish with the rest of the party only there as support (M, Q, Agent 009); but I'll assume this isn't what you're after, and proceed.

In modern movie superhero culture perhaps the best party-like analogies are the Avengers (but note they're spending most of their time beating each other up these days - PvP for the win!) and the Guardians of the Galaxy, in which there is a very wide range of abilities and "stats".

But those aren't D&D adventuring parties either. No, for that we need to look back to the true genre prototype: the Fellowship of the Ring. 9 characters, ranging in ability when the party forms from near-nothing (all the Hobbits) to decent (Gimli, Boromir; and Gandalf to start with - he does get promoted to near-god status later) to way up there (Aragorn, Legolas). And their "stat rolls" are all over the place as well. Clearly random, wildly imbalanced. No point buy in Middle Earth!

If I read you right you'd have no interest in playing Pippin, Merry, or even Sam - the ones who start out as just ordinary Hobbits but who in the end all become heroes in their own right - because at the start they all come across as 'gimps'. If true, I find that a little sad.

When you take a word in a discussion and redefine it from how it was being used...

Used by you, maybe. Not necessarily by the rest of us.

Lan-"RIP Adam West"-efan

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Ah yes, once again "If you were a better role-player/person you would love playing the inferior character! Because random is awesome! Don't agree, you must be a loser! Why? Because random is awesome!" Rinse and repeat.

Listen, I don't really care all that much. I decided long, long ago to use my own variation of point buy after I was first introduced to it in a Living City campaign. But I still get tired of the backhanded insults. You aren't the worst offender - that would be the guy that flat out stated that "rolling for stats weeds out the bad players". But still.

When you go to a standard blockbuster non-comedy action movie, who is the focus of the action? The normal Joes? Nope. It's James Bond, Jason Bourne, Wonder Woman. People who are just plain better at what they do because they are faster/stronger/smarter than the average person. Those are the people we aspire to be, the icons we want to imitate. Not Joe the Schmuck Janitor.

Wow. Your post has zero correlation with the words you quoted from my post.

There is not one word suggesting that a "better" player would love playing a PC who didn't fit your preferred idiom, be that "high stats" or "blonde" or "not a paladin."

But a more skillful player would have more options for a low-stats PC than simply hiding in the back. It's fair to say that someone might not ENJOY playing Mindy the Rogue Sniper when they were hoping to roll up Super Dave; but it's false to claim that Lumpy the Inert Lump is their only option (at least in 5E--I'm not talking about e.g. 3E). I'm being charitable here by assuming that they played an ineffective PC out of lack of skill as opposed to, say, passive-aggressiveness. "I can't be Super Dave so I'll make the worst PC I can and try to contribute nothing to draw attention to how sad you guys are making me." Instead I'll assume that the player was simply a new 5E player and didn't know what all of their options were.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

If I read you right you'd have no interest in playing Pippin, Merry, or even Sam - the ones who start out as just ordinary Hobbits but who in the end all become heroes in their own right - because at the start they all come across as 'gimps'. If true, I find that a little sad.

Can you perceive a distinction between choosing to play ordinary characters and having the dice determine what kind of character you're going to play?

Used by you, maybe. Not necessarily by the rest of us.

The word "hero" was first used in this context by [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION]. It seemed pretty clear to me the sense in which they were using the word, and just as clear that pming was misinterpreting it. If I'm wrong, Oofta can correct me and I'll defer to that correction. It is Oofta's argument, and if we want to understand and discuss Oofta's argument we all have to use the words in the way Oofta was using them or else we're just talking past each other.

"Here's what I have to say about the circle constant π..."
"π? π is the prime-counting function! And I don't want to talk about circles, so I'm going to talk about prime numbers instead!"

Doesn't work.

 

[ccs]

I think most DMs who use random rolls allow a player to reroll completely hopeless characters such as the theoretical PC with a 3, 4, and 6 which, incidentally, doesn't defeat the purpose of the die roll method. I'm also not sure how many enforce the "roll stats in order rule" but it can be quite a good one, it allows players to create based on the stats which might lead them to play something they never would have considered otherwise.

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Not this DM. If you choose to roll your stats, you'll play the resulting character. And you'll do so in good faith.

In my games each player chooses thier own method of stat generation. They can choose from:
● Standard pt buy.
●Standard Array.
●4d6, drop lowest, arrange as you please. Dice are rolled in front of the other players & DM. The results are recorded. Because we all like to see you win/lose the Stat lotto.
That & have you ever noticed that dice always roll super high when nobody but the person rolling them is a witness? Odd, just odd how that happens.
Likewise memories become cloudier the smaller the #s rolled.... Fortunately we've found that witnesses & pen/paper counters this memory loss.

And the reason you'll play the resulting character in good faith? Because you CHOSE to gamble with your stats. You could've played it safe. But you CHOSE this.
Sometimes it pays off big. Sometimes it backfires. Most often though you end up pretty close to standard PB/array.

I've only had 3 people choose to use PB/array.

Me? Outside a PbP game I'll always roll. I just like seeing what character fate assigns me to play. And if I find myself in a game without it? Then I'll make my case to the DM that I most certainly should be allowed to gamble with my stats. Whatever I roll, I'll make an effective & entertaining character.
If I roll well & there's someone with stat envy? Wether theyre 15 or 50, they need to grow up . It's not some competition between us. We're both on Team: Kill/loot-Monster. We both get the same xp & equel shares of loot.
If I roll poorly? Don't worry about it. I'll be fine & still provide an entertaining & effective character. Or the DM will succeed in killing my PC (despite my best efforts to thwart him) & maybe my next pc will be more to your liking.

 

[cbwjm]

Not this DM. If you choose to roll your stats, you'll play the resulting character. And you'll do so in good faith.

In my games each player chooses thier own method of stat generation. They can choose from:
● Standard pt buy.
●Standard Array.
●4d6, drop lowest, arrange as you please. Dice are rolled in front of the other players & DM. The results are recorded. Because we all like to see you win/lose the Stat lotto.
That & have you ever noticed that dice always roll super high when nobody but the person rolling them is a witness? Odd, just odd how that happens.
Likewise memories become cloudier the smaller the #s rolled.... Fortunately we've found that witnesses & pen/paper counters this memory loss.

And the reason you'll play the resulting character in good faith? Because you CHOSE to gamble with your stats. You could've played it safe. But you CHOSE this.
Sometimes it pays off big. Sometimes it backfires. Most often though you end up pretty close to standard PB/array.

I've only had 3 people choose to use PB/array.

Me? Outside a PbP game I'll always roll. I just like seeing what character fate assigns me to play. And if I find myself in a game without it? Then I'll make my case to the DM that I most certainly should be allowed to gamble with my stats. Whatever I roll, I'll make an effective & entertaining character.
If I roll well & there's someone with stat envy? Wether theyre 15 or 50, they need to grow up . It's not some competition between us. We're both on Team: Kill/loot-Monster. We both get the same xp & equel shares of loot.
If I roll poorly? Don't worry about it. I'll be fine & still provide an entertaining & effective character. Or the DM will succeed in killing my PC (despite my best efforts to thwart him) & maybe my next pc will be more to your liking.

That's a little different though. If our game is only using random stats then rerolls will happen if a character is absolutely rubbish. If we had the 3 options and it was said at the start what you roll is what you keep then that's fine but if I have a player that rolls nothing over a 10, I'll let them reroll.

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[pming]

Hiya!

When you take a word in a discussion and redefine it from how it was being used, then what you have to say will not be relevant to the discussion. You get that, right?

Random rolling and the standard array are presented as alternatives in the same paragraph. The sample character being built, Bruenor, uses the standard array. I think it's fair to say that the designers were aware of and open to both styles of play. And if you really think that neither is bad and it's just a matter of personal preference, you ought to welcome this, rather than trying to claim designer favor for your own preference as if that meant something.

I wasn't try to redefine it. As far as I read, nobody really 'defined' it...some were saying one thing, some were saying another, so I put my 2¢ into the mix. I guess my interpretation of 'hero' was more...hmmm...."spiritual" than "physical"? Does that make sense? Anyway, I'm sorry if I confused you or any others on my stance about the word hero and how it applies to RPG's.

As for Random Rolling I think you are incorrect. Yup. Just looked. Both Random Roll and Standard Array appear in the same paragraph, but it is quite clear that the default method is Random Rolling as it says "If you..." when it presents the option for Standard Array. We tried using the Standard Array method a couple of times, but we always felt each others PC's were too "same-ey". It was kind of, well, 'blaah' from everyones standpoint. When I ask everyone what their PC's Passive Perception is, I'd get "12, 12, 12, 12, 14"...or when I ask for an Athletics check to force a door open I'd hear the Players say "I have +3...I have +2...me too, +2...I have +2 as well...+4 over here, I guess I'll do it". Half of the characters would have half (or more) of their stats be exactly the same. Stands to reason with everyone having the same stat array. But when I introduced my "semi-random stat array" method (the Wheel of Pain Method I mentioned earlier), characters ended up quite varied. Some players were fine with a 6 and a 7 on their PC's, some wouldn't be and would put the 6 on a stat that their race got a bonus on. It instantly gave the character a bit more "feel"...a dwarf with an 8 Con? Why? Childhood sickness? Severe damage due to...monster? Mining accident? Torture? The players started coming up with more, shall we say, "unusual" character backgrounds.

*shrug* No matter how you define Hero, I guess the key thing is how the player sees the character and how the player plays it. Samwise and Achilles could be in the same party...and both could be "equal" in terms of heroics as far as I'm concerned.

PS: Here's the Miriam-Webster Dictionary definition of Hero: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hero

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[MoonSong]

The second and more important consideration is that I cannot say my sorcerer is a master at reading people while only have a 12 wisdom and proficiency in insight. That drastically alters my character concept. And all for what you attempt to describe as a measly +2! It's the fact of him being a master at reading peoples motives that makes him interesting compared to other sorcerors!

Almost every sorceress I've played in 5e has high wisdom, with point buy I can only dump so many scores, and once I get "low" int, "low" str and "low" con I don't have anywhere else to put those points to get "low" wisdom.

It goes back to the reasons to not roll for stats. I don't want to play a wimp, and I would never set my character up to die simply because I was not "interested" in the character. I'm not saying you would, or even that there is anything wrong with it. But there are people that do, that if they have poor stats or the numbers don't work out to be a character they will enjoy playing they set up their character to die.

Funny thing, my rolled PC has quite good stats, so good that I actually have problems identifying with her, and I have considered suiciding her, but since the party at large has no consideration for her, she is in big danger anyway, seriously I have seen too much frontline duty and friendly fire for what is essentially a support character.

Two, he has to make a decision that would be detrimental to his characters well-being. And when I say "well-being", I mean in a broad sense (e.g., if he is playing a Paladin and finds a suit of +2 plate mail...then finds out he will have to give it back to the prince because it was the kings armour...

I find this quite mean, do you ever give your PCs genuine rewards? Why do you think that setting up your players to fail is a good thing? I wonder if your players having problems being heroic is you intentionally making it more difficult than it should be.