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

[Oofta]

I don't think your comparison does justice to those that prefer random rolls. There's rarely a need to find a way to die in a randomly rolled game because every DM I've seen allows rerolls for stats they feel are too low.

I don't disagree - but I've had DMs that don't allow rerolls. When the player who rolled asked to reroll or use point buy he just laughed. In his mind it was "fair" because we had all rolled ... never mind that the result of the roll was not fair.

In addition if you do allow rerolls you aren't really using the standard 4d6 drop lowest.

 

[Satyrn]

Wouldn't that make them even more "samey"?

I wondered the same thing. I think they meant that the characters across campaigns won't be so "samey" even if the characters in a single campaign are.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't disagree - but I've had DMs that don't allow rerolls. When the player who rolled asked to reroll or use point buy he just laughed. In his mind it was "fair" because we had all rolled ... never mind that the result of the roll was not fair.

In addition if you do allow rerolls you aren't really using the standard 4d6 drop lowest.

It is fair, I give PCs the option of using point buy or the default array as we use 4d6. If you don't want to gamble use them.

I will usually allow a reroll if you get something spectacularly bad or if there is a massive disparity between 1 PC and another. Otherwise you keep what you roll or use the default array.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Depends on how you come up with your numbers. Since the point buy system doesn't allow for numbers outside of 8-15, you will ultimately be putting your thumb on the scale one way or another when you decide what the cost of an 18 or a 3 is.

If you limit random rolls to 8-15, it's close (within a point or two).

The only thing rolling for stats guarantees is that the results will be random. In a fairly significant percentage of groups the difference will be significant. Some characters will have better than you could have gotten with point buy, some will be worse.

I find that if you're really serious about enforcing equality between your players, it's actually best to limit both point-buy and rolled stats to a range from 10 to 10. All PCs must be single-classed half-orc thieves, no feats allowed. Every time someone rolls a d20, the number on the d20 is taken down and then everyone else gets that same d20 result on their next roll, too.

Also, all HP go into a common pool, and when that common pool reaches 0, everybody dies.

</Tongue-in-cheek> But seriously--if you limit 4d6 drop lowest to 8 to 15, it is no longer 4d6 drop lowest.

 

[Oofta]

I find that if you're really serious about enforcing equality between your players, it's actually best to limit both point-buy and rolled stats to a range from 10 to 10. All PCs must be single-classed half-orc thieves, no feats allowed. Every time someone rolls a d20, the number on the d20 is taken down and then everyone else gets that same d20 result on their next roll, too.

Also, all HP go into a common pool, and when that common pool reaches 0, everybody dies.

</Tongue-in-cheek> But seriously--if you limit 4d6 drop lowest to 8 to 15, it is no longer 4d6 drop lowest.

You're the one who keeps insisting that rolling dice gives you better results on average. All I'm saying is that it's comparing apples and oranges. I have no idea where you get your "percentile" number because there is no way to make a comparison outside of the 8-15 range.

The only fact here is that the result of rolling dice is that you get random results.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You're the one who keeps insisting that rolling dice gives you better results on average. All I'm saying is that it's comparing apples and oranges. I have no idea where you get your "percentile" number because there is no way to make a comparison outside of the 8-15 range.

The only fact here is that the result of rolling dice is that you get random results.

Well, for starters, I used the point-buy valuations you created and found that 4d6 drop lowest averages 31 points, vs. 27 for point-buy.

I've also mentioned repeatedly that the modal result on 4d6 drop lowest (55% of the time you get at least 16+) is outright impossible with point-buy.

Lanefan and I had a brief tangent on the lack of a total ordering for stat arrays, but you didn't seem interested in joining that conversation then and it's too late now.

It is my opinion that WotC did this on purpose, making point-buy worse than 4d6 drop lowest, so that those who gamble are usually rewarded for it. If so I think it was rather clever of WotC--it's like running a gambling game where almost everybody comes out feeling like a winner. They're unlikely to be disappointed in the proprietor of that game, and will probably come back for me. Clever, IMO, given their business goals.

That is all.

 

[Oofta]

Well, for starters, I used the point-buy valuations you created and found that 4d6 drop lowest averages 31 points, vs. 27 for point-buy.

I've also mentioned repeatedly that the modal result on 4d6 drop lowest (55% of the time you get at least 16+) is outright impossible with point-buy.

Lanefan and I had a brief tangent on the lack of a total ordering for stat arrays, but you didn't seem interested in joining that conversation then and it's too late now.

It is my opinion that WotC did this on purpose, making point-buy worse than 4d6 drop lowest, so that those who gamble are usually rewarded for it. If so I think it was rather clever of WotC--it's like running a gambling game where almost everybody comes out feeling like a winner. They're unlikely to be disappointed in the proprietor of that game, and will probably come back for me. Clever, IMO, given their business goals.

That is all.

If you wanted to compare apples to apples you would probably have to go back to the 3.5 rules. But even then they didn't do the low numbers so the evaluation would be limited at best.

My "guesstimate" is only that and was just something I was using to get some rough numbers for comparison.

If I were to allow people to buy up to an 18 using my numbers I would give them more points. I don't think starting that high really buys anything so I don't.

 

[cbwjm]

While everyone argues about which is superior between point buy and 4d6 drop 1, I thought I'd ask if others have used any other methods. One I thought of trying was the matrix where the players roll stats in order until you have a 6x6 matrix and players choose different lines or columns to use for their PC. Another I've considered is rolling 18d6 (or maybe 20d6) and allowing players to assign the dice to their stats. So long as no score was less than 3 or higher than 18 before race modifiers the player can assign as many dice as they like to their stats.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Depends on how you come up with your numbers. Since the point buy system doesn't allow for numbers outside of 8-15, you will ultimately be putting your thumb on the scale one way or another when you decide what the cost of an 18 or a 3 is.

Both you and @Hemlock are right about this. The 3E point buy values, and plausible extrapolations from the 5E values, do overvalue 17s and 18s. But even if you drop those values really low, the average of the random roll comes out ahead. The high scores simply aren't probable enough for their value to have a huge effect on the average: most of that figure is determined by the 8-15 range. It's almost the same situation for the low scores. Now, because you can give them negative values and go as low as you want, it is possible to push the random average to the same point value as the base array, or lower. But because those low numbers are really improbable, you have to go really low -- indisputably putting your thumb on the scale.

However, when you stop playing with point buy values and just look at the raw probabilities, you find that the average scores of 4d6k3, from highest to lowest, are [15.66, 14.17, 12.96, 11.76, 10.41, 8.50]. That's pretty darn close to [15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8]. Average difference of about +0.24. Yeah, rolling is better, and if I really wanted to make the standard array fair compared to rolling I'd probably round up instead of down on that 15.66. But even as-is, it's not like the standard array sucks compared to the average rolls. The gap is pretty small, and I suspect Hemlock is overinterpreting it. It's literally a rounding error.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

(Never mind, not worth the bother.)